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THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

A VISION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE 



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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 



* THE 

SETTLEMENT IDEA 

A VISION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE 



BY 

ARTHUR C. HOLDEN 

FORMERLY SECRETARY PRINCETON COMMITTEE 
ON SOCIAL SERVICE 



N* m fork 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1922 

All rights reserved 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



Copyright, 1922, 
By ARTHUR C. HOLDEN 

Set BP and electrotyped. Published January, 1922. 



FERRIS 

PRINTING COMPANY 

NEW YORK CITY 



CONTENTS 

fl PAGE 

Introductory Note . . xxiii 

CHAPTER I 

RADICAL VS. CONSERVATIVE 

1. All human beings alike require the satisfac- 
tion of certain needs 1 

2. Defence against external aggression has ab- 
sorbed the first consideration of govern- 
ments 1 

3. Nevertheless governments must principally 
take thought to secure justice between man 
and man  2 

4. Thomas Jefferson's warning 2 

5. It is at length recognized that disputes be- 
tween nations must cease 3 

6. Radical as opposed to conservative thought 3 

7. The conservative as the opportunist who acts 
independent of any thought of social con- 
sequences 3 

8. The radical as the critic and propagandist . . 4 

9. Social factors are constantly changing, put- 
ting radical propaganda out of date and 
bringing about change in spite of the re- 
sistance of conservatives 5 

10. The background of radical thought is little 
understood 5 

11. Radical intrigue and agitation 7 

v 



vi CONTENTS 

fl PAGE 

12. Obligation to defend property rights puts 
the state behind the conservative element 
sometimes to the abridgment of other rights 8 

13. The Russian "Red" does not understand 
American institutions nor does the American 
understand the "Red" 8 

14. The average man's life is too circumscribed 
for him to form correct judgments, this 
book will attempt to point out a method for 
"getting an understanding" 9 

CHAPTER II 

THE IDEAS OF THE FOUNDERS 

1. The social settlement a method of approach 
to social problems, which is often misunder- 
stood 11 

2. Influence of English workers 11 

3. Canon Barnett's idea and Arnold Toynbee 

as a type 12 

4. Founding of Toynbee Hall in 1884 12 

5. Original statement of purposes 13 

6. Canon Barnett's estimate of value of the 
idea 14 

7. Founding of first settlement in America, 
1887 14 

8. Early aims of the movement in New York 15 

9. Seth Low's estimate of its value 16 

10. Second settlement in America founded 17 

11. The establishment of Hull House in Chicago, 
1889 17 



CONTENTS vii 

fl PAGE 

12. Miss Addams' analysis of motives in settle- 
ment work 18 

13. The success of the settlement idea. Jacob 
Riis, Richard Watson Gilder, and Theo- 
dore Roosevelt early figures in the "reform 
movement" in New York * 19 

CHAPTER III 

THE INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITY 

1. The rapid growth of the industrial town and 

the changed status of the workman 21 

2. The decline in wages 21 

3. Individual workman of Colonial days his 
own master 22 

4. Growth of the shop employing journeymen, 
followed by the development of the mer- 
chant 23 

5. Relation of machinery to industrial develop- 
ment 24 

6. Transition from craftsman to factory system 
of production. Immigrant competition with 
labor 25 

7. Family and child labor. The plight of both 
skilled and common labor 26 

8. Protests in America against the social de- 
gradation of the workingman 27 

9. The protest in England. The Christian so- 
cialists and the Owenites 28 

10. The revolt in France 29 



viii CONTENTS 

H PAGE 

11. The scientific socialists of Germany 29 

12. The intellectual protest in Russia, the novel- 
ists 30 

13. Contrast between the proposals of the social- 
ists and the method of Canon Barnett 30 

14. The intellectual awakening of today offers an 
opportunity for further development of the 
settlement idea 32 

CHAPTER IV 

FIRST CONTACT WITH THE SETTLEMENT 

1. Contrast between the tenement district and 

the business part of a great city 33 

2. New York's "East Side" 33 

3. Appearance of a settlement house 34 

4. First impression likely to be distorted 34 

5. Table talk as an index of the spirit of the 
residents' household 35 

6. Impressions from contact with the average 
activities of the settlement 36 

7. Settlement's greatest value not evident with- 
out careful analysis 38 

8. Two different classes of people come together 

in the settlement 38 

9. The immediate benefits are the result of what 
those who have had greater advantages are 
able to do for those whose opportunity has 
been limited 39 

JO. Very few share in these immediate benefits . 39 



CONTENTS ix 

fl PAGE 

11. Immediate benefits difficult to tabulate 40 

12. Settlement renders service to individuals, 
families, the neighborhood, the city, and the 
state 40 

13. Varieties and classes of individuals 41 

14. The club a typical unit of individuals 41 

15. Individuals come to the settlement seeking 
primarily recreation and education 42 

16. The average family seeks relief on account 

of health, financial distress or conduct 42 

17. Demands upon settlement by individuals and 
families are not peculiar to the settlement 
alone 42 

18. Importance of point of view in any attempt 

to satisfy a social need 43 

19. Settlements' appreciation of different view- 
points 44 

20. Recapitulation of points of view 45 

CHAPTER V 

IMMEDIATE DEMANDS AND METHODS OF WORK 

1. Subdivisions of settlement activities 47 

2. Regular work and standardization 48 

3. Extension work 48 

4. Recreation work principal among regular 
activities 50 

5. Recreation as a human need 50 

6. Settlement must supply something more than 
recreation 51 

7. The settlement and music 52 



x CONTENTS 

ft PAGE 

8. Art and its meaning ..... .,.,. . . . T . . . 52 

9. Dramatic work 53 

10. The settlement as a developer of self-expres- 
sion and neighborhood expression 55 

11. The settlement as an agency for securing ac- 
curate information as to existing social con- 
ditions 55 

12. Public recreation and social centers 56 

13. The Social Unit and the Community Council 57 

14. Settlement must be prepared to answer calls 

for financial distress 58 

15. "Organized Charity" and financial distress. 58 

16. Case Work 59 

17. Emergency relief in cases of acute distress 
must be given but should not be made an 
end of settlement work 59 

18. Visiting nurse service of Henry Street Set- 
tlement 60 

19. Responsibility for a neighborhood health 
program devolves upon the resident nurse in 

the settlement 61 

20. Co-operation with the Day Nursery 62 

21. The settlement as adviser in cases arising 
from conduct 62 

22. Co-operation with Big Brother Movement, 
Juvenile Protective Association, Legal Aid 
Society, and other organizations 63 



CONTENTS xi 

CHAPTER VI 

THE CLUB AND THE SUMMER CAMP IN 
SETTLEMENT WORK 
|f PAGE 

1. The Club a practical working unit 64 

2. The settlement's responsibility 64 

3. The club leader 65 

4. Value of the volunteer leader and necessity 
for popularizing an understanding of his 
position 65 

5. Value of example in leadership 67 

6. The winning of the boy 69 

7. The awakening of the boy 69 

8. Method in club work cannot be uniform ; club 

set standards • • •  20 

9. Critics of the club are prone to expect too 
much of it 20 

10. The specialized Boy's Club, possibility of 
co-operation with the settlements 71 

11. The Boy Scouts of America 72 

12. Immediate relation of the camp to the set- 
tlement 73 

13. Points of difference .and special advantages 74 

14. The camp as a democratic society 76 

CHAPTER VII 

REAL OR PERMANENT BENEFITS 

1. The settlement is convinced that ideal democ- 
racy is possible 77 



xii CONTENTS 

fi PAGE 

2. Modern education neglects to give the in- 
dividual an understanding of his relation to 
society 77_ 

3. As opposed to salvation of the individual 
soul, today we have begun to concern our- 
selves with social evangelism , 7S 

4. Permanent work for the settlement as a 
means of approach to a better understanding 
between the elements of society 79 

5. Classification of society — The Social Quad- 
rant 79 

6. The line of advantages or privileges, a ma- 
terial division 81 

7. The line of understanding, a spiritual dis- 
tinction 82 

8. The "social conscience" and "social responsi- 
bility" 82 

9. Friendships made possible by the settlement 84 

10. Necessity for a human understanding and a 
natural social relation between those eco- 
nomically related to one another 85 

11. Opportunity for men who desire to play not 
only a part but a useful part in society , 86 

12. Opportunity to put life to the test 87 

13. The settlement does not seek to put any 
theory into practice S7 

14. The awakening to a consciousness of social 
injustice produces at first blind rage and the 
concept of the "class war" 88 



CONTENTS xiii 

fl PAGE 

15. The "evolutionary socialists" as opposed to 

the revolutionary school 88 

16. Liberal reforms — the feminist movement, 

the labor movement 89 

17. Value of social contacts of the settlement 
to the labor leader — the concept of the battle 
of understanding with unreasoning personal 
greed , 89 

18. The awakening of barren lives to social con- 
sciousness. The possibility of social justice 
through understanding of social values. ... 91 

CHAPTER VIII 

SETTLEMENT ADMINISTRATION AND SUPPORT 

1. Necessity for a sound fiscal basis 93 

2. Disadvantages of an endowment policy. ... 93 

3. Heavy burden upon individual subscribers 
merely to maintain a standard , 94 

4. The immediate neighborhood as contributors 94 

5. The responsibility rests not on the neighbor- 
hood but upon society as a whole 95 

6. The municipality not the ideal source of sup- 
port though it should maintain organized so- 
cial work 95 

7. Industry not in a position to support the set- 
tlement 96 

8. Necessity of voluntary financial support, the 
funds administered by trustees 97 

9. The board of managers 98 

10. The danger of reaction 98 



xiv CONTENTS 

ft PAGE 

11. The headworker . . .. 100 

12. Types of workers, professional and volun- 
teer 100 

13. Democratic help of Club's Council 101 

14. The budget 103 

CHAPTER IX 

PROBLEMS OF RACE 

1. European immigration as a source of labor 
supply 109 

2. Proportion of foreign born to whole popula- 
tion of the United States 109 

3. The American's attitude toward immigration 110 

4. The immigrant's arrival in America — living 
conditions in New York 110 

5. The foreign born quarter in the western city 111 

6. The native born's contempt for the for- 
eigner, "Americanization" 112 

7. The children have the greater opportunity to 
learn English 114 

8. Difficulties in the way of the parent's learn- 
ing the new language 114 

9. The settlement as an interpreter of America 

to the immigrant 115 

10. The use of the immigrant's own tongue to 
teach him about his new country 116 

11. Co-operation with the organized work of for- 
eign language groups 117 

12. The contribution of the foreigner to Ameri- 
can life 118 



CONTENTS xv 

fl PAGE 

13. American farming has benefited especially 

by German and Scandinavian immigration . . 119 

14. The foreigner's contribution to the arts, liter- 
ature, music, and the handicrafts 120 

15. The settlement's opportunity to stimulate the 
immigrant to give America his best 121 

16. Parents not so quick as their children to 
grasp new ways and methods 121 

17. Liberty is not license, it should be balanced 
with substance 122 

18. The immigrant's contact with native Ameri- 
can labor 123 

19. The "disinterested" policy of the American 
employer 124 

20. The padrone system 125 

21. The company town and the ban on "agita- 
tors" of whatever type 126 

22. Necessity for understanding the employer's 
point of view 127 

23. The tendency for racial animosities to die 

out in America 127 

24. The traditional conception in the mind of the 
immigrant of the democracy of the United 
States 128 

25. Community of purpose, social ties stronger 
than loyalty to race, the United States as a 
social entity 128 

26. Loyalty of naturalized Americans in the war 
significant of power of a nation organized 
upon social rather than racial lives 129 



xvi CONTENTS 

ff PAGE 

27. Conclusions, the foreigner must be helped 
and urged to make his contribution to Amer- 
ican life 130 

CHAPTER X 

PROBLEMS OF RELIGION 

1. Differences in religion give rise to many 
problems which are difficult to handle. . . . 132 

2. Settlements furnish a non-sectarian meeting 
ground for all elements in their neighbor- 
hood 132 

3. Emphasis of the settlement is put upon living 
rather than teaching morals 133 

4. Necessity for an outlet for religious emo- 
tions 135 

5. The settlement has been compelled to disre- 
gard petty differences and go to essentials. . 135 

6. Common heritage of Jew and Gentile, the 
ethical interest shown by the Jew in the 
teachings of Christ 136 

7. The spirit of the settlement movement is es- 
sentially Christian 137 

8. Historical Digression — The place of Socrates 
and Plato in Greek philosophy, growth of the 
humanizing influence of the Roman SchQol 138 

9. The educational contribution of the Cynics 
and Rhetoricans. The emphasis of the Pyth- 
agorean school upon personal holiness 139 

10. Contact with the East — The rise of the 
Alexandrian school — Neo Platonism and 



CONTENTS xvii 

ft PAGE 

contact with Hebrew thought, Philo of 
Alexandria 139 

11. The coming of Christ — His teachings repre- 
sent the flowering of the philosophical 
thought of the time 140 

12. Many of the mystical forms and supersti- 
tions of the day were appropriated by Chris- 
tianity 141 

13. Emphasis laid by the early church upon life 

in the hereafter 141 

14. Definite conformities, required by the early 
church, insisted upon even after the Re- 
formation. Controversy over dogma has 
obscured the essential religion 142 

15. Christ showed a way of life. The end as the 
social good. The settlement idea as a meth- 
od of living 143 

CHAPTER XI 

THE SETTLEMENT AND EDUCATION 

1. Definition of education 145 

2. Natural contacts, shared experience 145 

3. Manners, tastes, preferences, esthetics — at- 
traction and revulsion 146 

4. The school as a type of artificial contact with 
the experience of the race — The primary and 
secondary task of the school 147 

5. The pupil learns from the lesson to do what 
he is taught. The student learns from study 

to understand 148 



xviii CONTENTS 

U pAGE 

6. The school as a democracy of natural con- 
tacts 149 

7. The student is the exceptional product. The 
student as a leader 149 

8. The average product of the schools has mas- 
tered the lesson only, which he fails to relate 

to life as a whole 150 

9. Democratic spirit in the schools undirected 150 

,10. Need for a new vision in education 151 

ll a The private tutor. The unlimited influence 

of his personality and his philosophy 151 

12. The greater possibility of control over the 
influence of the teacher, the fear of early 
independence for the child's mind 152 

13. The value of giving the child an understand- 
ing of social needs as opposed to holding 
him under terror of discipline 152 

14. The perversion of recorded history by prud- 
ish conceits and propaganda 153 

15. The general opposition on the part of con- 
trolling factions to the disturbance of estab- 
lished thought and practice by the introduc- 
tion of new ideas 154 

16. Our schools fulfill the task which is set them, 

the mastery of the lesson ....._ 154 

17. Is the school to develop an understanding of 
social forces or is another organization to 
develop beside it? 155 

18. The settlement can supplement the school and 
broaden the narrow environment of the home 156 



CONTENTS xix 

fl PAGE 

19. The settlement can add vitality and meaning 

to the lives of educated people 157 

20. The recent awakening to the idea of social 
values of the Y. W. C. A 157 

21. The awakening of the church. The Inter- 
church Report on the Steel Strike of 1919. . 158 

22. The shortcomings of the school due in great 
measure to the shortcomings of other social 
factors. The settlement must not fail to ful- 
fill its part 158 

CHAPTER XII 

PROBLEMS AND PITFALLS 

1. Humility and openness of mind a prere- 
quisite of the worker who would learn to 
understand life 160 

2. Ineffective sentimentalism and confusion of 
mind a result of too narrow a background 160 

3. The tendency of the worker to become parti- 
san and narrow 161 

4. The analogy of society and the animal organ- 
ism 161 

5. The society which supports its brain workers 

for its service also supports the parasite. . . 162 

6. The social worker surrounded daily by pov- 
erty falls into the way of taking sides 162 

7. Workers often the victim of association with 
their intellectual inferiors 163 

8. Necessity for retaining outside contacts... 164 



xx CONTENTS 

fl PAGE 

9. The resident worker must get proper recrea- 
tion to keep the joy of living fresh within 
him 164 

10. Present low economic reward. In the ideal 
there should be few salaried positions for 
which the pay should be adequate 164 

11. Personal enthusiasms tend to carry the 
worker too far in one direction 165 

12. The danger of a cheap veneer of culture. .. . 165 

13. Where the imagination and the esthetic sense 
are aroused the emphasis must not be mis- 
placed so as to make life seem too unreal. . 166 

14. How far in recreation? 167 

15. Co-operation with existing agencies of recre- 
ation 167 

16. Danger of psychological enthusiasms wrong- 
ly used 168 

PAGE 

17. The settlements' purpose not to reform or 

to uplift but to understand 168 

CHAPTER XIII 

HOW IS IT TO CARRY ON? 

1. The settlement not a panacea 170 

2. So long as a neighborhood needs friends the 
settlement must be on hand ready to intro- 
duce them 170 

3. The test of a settlement lies not in its physi- 
cal equipment but in its spirit 171 

4. The neighborhood spirit 172 



CONTENTS xxi 

fl PAGE 

5. Knowledge of conditions essential 173 

6. Estimate of Canon Barnett's method 173 

7. The method and teaching of the economists 
and the socialists 174 

8. Socio-economic thought 176 

9. Social justice possible only through com- 
plete social understanding 176 

10. Motive in the choice of a neighborhood. . . . 177 

11. Difficulties in the way of getting into touch 
with neighbors 178 

12. The assistance of the settlement house. Need 

of more living quarters and of more settlers 178 

13. Labor movement unconnected with the settle- 
ment. A vital force lacking in the collective 
life of the organized neighborhood 179 

14. The ^settlement not a panacea but a method 
of approach. Social relations must be un- 
derstood before they can be improved. The 
necessity for popularizing the idea ,. 180 

APPENDICES 

A. Statements of Settlements' Purpose by the 
United Neighborhood Houses of New York 182 

B. The Great War and the Foreign Born Popu- 
lation of the United States 190 

C. Illiteracy and Inability to speak English in 

the United States 197 

E. Financial Reports and Finances 201 

Bibliography 207 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE 

Some of the deep problems of life, the perplexities, 
the social frictions, the regretable unfairnesses, it is not 
easy to understand. There are many thoughtful peo- 
ple who would gladly so order their lives that the 
whole direction of their living might be consistent with 
the public good, had they but positive knowledge of 
what that direction should be. Such knowledge cannot 
come until the great majority of men begin to think 
in social terms. Perhaps that day is still far off. 
Nothing, however, can help so much to bring it 
nearer as a conscious striving for an understanding 
of social conditions, social values, and social phe- 
nomena. 

Among college men and women there has been a 
growing tendency to test out values and to ask ques- 
tions. It fell to my lot shortly after graduation to 
become one of a committee to urge men as they came 
out of the colleges to take an active interest in civic 
and social problems. Working at such a task, it 
became increasingly difficult to tell the younger men 
just what it was for which we were soliciting their 
interest. It was with difficulty that our committee 
overcame the "holier than thou" imputation, with which 
we were constantly embarrassed. Even the use of 
the term "social service" appeared to be a stumbling 
block. The committee, of which I speak, came under 

xxiii 



xxiv THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

the influence of the settlement movement at the very 
outset. Through the entree which this contact gave 
us, it was possible to make an intelligent approach to 
the whole social question. The relation which the 
settlement bears to our work, and indeed to any 
organized piece of social work, is still, however, very 
imperfectly understood. What it is all about, must 
be explained anew to almost every prospective friend 
who is approached. 

Believing that the settlement plays an essential role, 
which is of fundamental importance to society as a 
whole and of vital interest to each and every human 
being, whether he imagines himself to be interested 
or not, I have set myself the task of interpreting the 
settlement idea. Those better qualified than I to speak 
have already written fluently and ably upon the sub- 
ject. In a sense, it is an unwarranted assumption that 
I, an architect by profession, should invade the field 
of socio-economic writing. As a professional man, 
however, I know that the greatest professional accom- 
plishments are achieved for a public that demands 
achievement. In general the public is rather prone to 
leave the thinking about social things to the profes- 
sional social worker, just as it is accustomed to leave 
the field of artistic thought to artists, of religious 
thought to ministers, of educational thought to pro- 
fessors, and to leave the care of the public health to 
doctors. This shifting of responsibility is generally 
accompanied by a neglect to take an interest at all and 
is one of the chief reasons that our health standards 
are still needlessly low, that our educational system 
is antiquated, that our churches are unpopular, that 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE xxv 

our real artists are few, and that our social system is 
needlessly muddled. 

There has been a great deal of criticism lately of 
that prolific writer, Mr. H. G. Wells. He has been 
accused of trying to tell everybody how to run every- 
body else's business besides the world in general. 
What he really has been saying is that the world is 
headed for trouble unless we revise our way of think- 
ing about things. What one man does, affects not 
only himself but many others. It is everybody's busi- 
ness not only what men are doing but how they are 
doing it. Mr. Wells has seen the need of an intellectual 
Renaissance, the quickening of the minds of all men 
to an interest in all fields of human endeavor. Our 
scientists, our ministers, our thinkers can not go for- 
ward without this popular support. There is a par- 
ticular need for examining the organization of society, 
and of understanding its faults, its misplacements, and 
its good features. Through the settlement idea there 
is the opening for an approach toward a popular under- 
standing of social problems and relationships. In this 
volume I have focused upon the settlement solely in 
the hope of popularizing it and of using it for a larger 
social end than it serves at present. 

After all, social problems are not merely the con- 
cern of a little group of over-conscientious thinkers; 
if we are to progress, the great body of men and 
women must be stimulated to think clearly upon the 
subject and to demand clear thinking from their social 
leaders. "The great majority of men and women, in 
ordinary times, pass through life without ever con- 
templating or criticising, as a whole, either their own 



xxvi THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

conditions or those of the world at large. They find 
themselves born into a certain place in society, and they 
accept what each day brings forth, without any effort 
of thought beyond what the immediate present requires. 
Almost as instinctively as the beasts of the field, they 
seek the satisfaction of the needs of the moment, with- 
out much forethought, and without considering that 
by sufficient effort the whole conditions of their lives 
could be changed. A certain percentage, guided by 
personal ambition, make the effort of thought and 
will which is necessary to place themselves among the 
more fortunate members of the community; but very 
few among these are seriously concerned to secure for 
all the advantages which they seek for themselves. 
It is only a few rare and exceptional men who have 
that kind of love toward mankind at large that make 
them unable to endure patiently the general mass of 
evil and suffering, regardless of any relation it may 
have to their own lives." * 

The following pages could never have been put into 
the form in which they are, had it not been for the 
untiring support of certain good friends, who were 
wise enough to condemn manuscript unsparingly and 
unselfish enough to give valuable time and suggestion 
towards its revision. For the original thought that 
prompted me to undertake the book, I am indebted to 
Professor V. G. Simkhovitch. Those whom I desire 
principally to thank for criticism and suggestion are: 
Ferdinand D. Sanford, Franklin C. Wells, Jr., George 
Alexander Armstrong, Tertius van Dyke, Curtiss 



1 Bertrand Russell. "Proposed Roads to Freedom." 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE xxvii 

Wheeler, Edward Hale Bierstadt, and Viola P. Conklin. 
Severest and most penetrating of all critics, my wife 
deserves the especial gratitude of the reader for her 
discerning insistence on revision. 

Arthur C. Holden. 
New York, June, 1921. 



THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

CHAPTER I 

RADICAL VERSUS CONSERVATIVE 

1. Human beings, whether refined by training or 
not, have within them the germinals of the same needs, 
motives, impulses, and desires. It is not possible for 
life to go on unless certain of the most fundamental 
human needs are satisfied. All men alike require food 
and drink, exercise and rest, shelter, and occupation for 
the mind, and an outlet for the faculties of sex. 
Democratic governments are maintained to insure to 
all men the "right to life, liberty and the pursuit of 
happiness." 

2. In the earliest tribal development, it was the 
patriarch who meted out justice among his followers. 
As time went on, however, a newer and different 
responsibility was placed Upon the leader of the tribe. 
It became his duty to protect the society of his own 
people against external aggression. In the attempt to 
shatter the menacing power of an unfriendly state, war 
came into the world. The modern state has concen- 
trated upon equipment to defend itself against external 
aggression but it has not been uniformly capable of 
maintaining all of its constituent members in the en- 
joyment of their natural rights. In the appalling strug- 
gles that have taken place between nations, the primi- 
tive social functions of the state have been often lost 

1 



2 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

sight of and the state organization developed and im- 
proved with the primary purpose of assuring the 
stability of the organization itself. 

3. Nevertheless the struggle for the maintenance 
of essential right between man and man has been 
always going on. Occasionally it has been marked 
by great outbursts and convulsions which have threat- 
ened the stability of the social order itself. The 
French Revolution shook Europe to its foundations. 
On our own continent the American Revolution took 
a somewhat different form. The necessity was recog- 
nized and the attempt was made to set up an ideal 
form of government. There was no passion for 
revenge upon a particular class such as unbalanced the 
revolutionary leaders of France. 

4. It had come to be recognized that men are 
dominated by motives which tend to control their ac- 
tions beyond the enjoyment of their elemental needs. 
Motives such as the love of praise, the love of posses- 
sion and the love of controlling, lead some to acquire 
power greater than obtainable by most men. The 
restraint which government exercises is applied to pro- 
tect men from those whose own ambitions lead them 
to neglect consideration of their fellows. In drawing 
up the Federal Constitution, Americans recognized the 
necessity for specific guarantees of liberty. Thomas 
Jefferson spoke out fearlessly upon this subject : 

"The spirit of the time may alter, will alter. 
Our rulers will become corrupt, our people care- 
less. A single zealot may become persecutor and 
better men become his victims. It can never be 
too often repeated that the time for fixing essen- 



RADICAL VERSUS CONSERVATIVE 3 

tial right, on a legal basis, is while our rulers 
are honest, ourselves united. From the conclu- 
sion of this war we shall be going down hill. It 
will not then be necessary to resort every moment 
to the people for support. They will be forgotten, 
therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will 
forget themselves in the sole faculty of making 
money, and will never think of uniting to effect 
a due respect for their rights. The shackles, 
therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the 
conclusion of this war will be heavier and heavier, 
till our rights shall revive or expire in a con- 
vulsion." 

5. Today we stand perhaps at the beginning of a 
new day. The recognition that wars between nations 
must cease, and the establishment of an international 
league to settle disputes between peoples, should lessen 
the troublesome burden of national defense and free 
the state again to turn its best energies to the main- 
tenance of justice within its borders. 

6. And now at a time when all intellectual effort 
should be concentrated upon interpreting the changes 
brought about through the war and upon understand- 
ing the new inter-relations of men, we are engaged in 
the old battle of the radical versus the conservative. 
It is a natural division between men, due perhaps to 
a different outlook and a different way of thinking 
about things in general. 

7. Speaking broadly the conservative is more gen- 
erally the opportunist. He is quite ready to play the 
game of life taking things just as he finds them and 
regulating his conduct only by the restraint of estab- 



4 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

lished custom. He is not likely to question the social 
consequences of any act of his so long as it is an 
act permitted by common practice. His answer to the 
criticism of the unfortunate condition in which the 
majority of people live is that most men do not know 
what is good for them; that they have brought these 
conditions upon themselves; that such is the way of 
human life and it can never be otherwise. There are 
plenty of well meaning people of this type who devoutly 
thank God for the many blessings that they themselves 
have received while they offer genuine sympathy for 
their fellows who have not been so fortunate. There 
still, however, exist some who would rule their brothers 
with an iron hand and teach them by force what is 
good for them. 

8. The radical in general is a man who criticizes 
complacency and, as the derivation of the word implies, 
proposes to go to the root of things for his remedy. 
There have been many types. They have put forward 
various proposals for the improvement of the social 
organization which have been received by conserva- 
tively minded people with uniform abhorrence. The 
radical, whose influence has been pre-eminent and whose 
proposals have received widespread consideration, was 
Karl Marx, the socialist. His proposals were definite, 
he preached revolution as the inescapable means of 
social readjustment. He believed that the proletariat 
after being forced lower and lower by the oppression 
of capitalism would at length revolt. The proletariat 
of today, however, is not the same proletariat of which 
Marx wrote in his great work "Das Kapital." It has 
changed. Although greater and greater wealth has 



RADICAL VERSUS CONSERVATIVE 5 

been concentrated in the hands of the capitalists, the 
laboring man has not been reduced to the abject wage 
slavery that was prophesied. The increase in wealth 
has actually given him more earning power and a 
larger share of income. Through his ability to organize 
he has been able in a measure to control wages. The 
proletarian revolution will not come about in the way 
nor for the reasons that were prophesied by Karl 
Marx. 

9. The factors which make up the social whole are 
interrelated and interdependent. When a single factor 
changes in value the relation to the others and to the 
whole itself changes. Though we are accustomed to 
use the word revolution to describe a sudden change, 
changes just as revolutionary may come about by slow 
natural development. Programs which are put forward 
to remedy definite conditions lose force and value as 
the world marches onward and those conditions change. 
Conservatives are prone to be overshocked and preju- 
diced by the programs which are put forward and 
to waste their energies in useless resistance to the par- 
ticular program. The course which is generally taken 
is suppression of the advocates of the despised doctrine, 
based upon their alleged transgression of established 
courses of conduct. What the conservative fears is 
social distintegration brought about by too sudden 
change. This resistance to ill-considered change has 
certainly a definite social value. 

10. Among conservatives, however, there has been 
little understanding and little attempt to understand the 
background which underlies radical propaganda. They 
understand for example little of the history of the 



§ THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

Russian "Red" who, brought up under the most 
medieval and oppressive government that modern times 
has known, has become convinced that all government 
is oppressive and tyrannical and hypocritical. He has 
been aroused by various grades of radical thought, the 
humanitarianism of Tolstoy, the anarchism of Bakunin 
and Kropotkin, and the violent example of Ravachol. 
Before he has even realized that his own people have 
won what the people of other nations have long 
enjoyed, namely, political self-expression, he assumes 
that the government of other nations being like his 
own, which he has just overthrown, wish* to oppress 
and exploit him again and to reinstate the oppressor 
and the rule of the landlord. The "Red" looks upon 
governments as the tool and instrument of those who 
have power. He does not believe in the sincerity of 
representative government. He comes to the United 
States and is thrust into crowded tenement districts 
where the living conditions are vile. He hears some 
talk about the vote, but he sees his ignorant neighbors 
marshalled to the polls and exploited by the ward boss 
whose vision includes only the establishment of the 
political security of his own faction and the milking 
of political offices for personal advantage. The "Red" 
concludes that in a democracy the capitalist and the 
landlord are as firmly intrenched as they were under 
the corrupt political system that he knew at home. He 
concludes that the capitalist and the landlord let the 
puppets play for their penny worth of gain so long 
as the system remains secure. The "Red," there- 
fore, preaches anarchy to his "oppressed brother" 
in the United States as the only means that he 



RADICAL VERSUS CONSERVATIVE 7 

knows of escaping from exploitation by the moneyed 
class. 

11. Reinforcing this type of anarchistic agitator 
is the intriguing emissary of the Bolshevik government. 
He is the paid servant of a government that has gained 
its power by revolution, that has had to fight opposi- 
tion at home and that has maintained itself by a sys- 
tem of hostages, execution, and confiscation. Those 
at the head of this revolutionary government have had 
a purpose which they have attempted to accomplish. 
Their program has been the most visionary, the most 
revolutionary and, in the light of past experience, the 
most impossible that any party in any country ever 
sought to accomplish. The Bolsheviki have found 
themselves distrusted and suspected not alone by indi- 
viduals and parties but by the organized governments 
of the world. Their basic belief in the class war teaches 
them to suspect that class interests are at the root 
of the opposition to their program. The conviction 
on the part of the Bolsheviki that all governments are 
organized by the moneyed and landed classes for the 
maintenance of property rights and for the exploitation 
of the wage earner, teaches them to look upon all 
governments as their natural enemies. The paid agent 
of the Bolsheviki therefore works with the anarchistic 
idealist 2 for the overthrow of all government. 

The "Reds" meet, as they did in their own country, 
in secret. They attempt to stir up industrial discontent. 
They preach "class war" ! They "agitate" ! The "Red" 
includes in his agitation advocacy of the overthrow of 



'See Russell. "Proposed Roads to Freedom." 



8 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

the government. Ignored at first he is finally appre- 
hended and perhaps imprisoned. He is filled with 
jealousy and rage toward the officials who have appre- 
hended him. He is convinced that, like the imperial 
police of bureaucratic Russia, all government officials 
are the servants of the landed class and the capitalists. 

12. On the other hand, there are enough selfish 
men who would prostitute the instruments of free 
government for their own selfish ends to give color 
to his suspicions. The protection of property often 
calls the police to take a side against men and women, 
who have a just grievance. The right in law to the 
defence of property rights is universally recognized, 
but it has frequently been made a paramount issue 
for no other reason than to obscure the existence of 
other rights and to compel the state to side with property 
holders. The American tendency to insist upon the letter 
rather than upon the spirit of the law, has put the man 
without property and without money at a great dis- 
advantage and has led to discrimination against him. 

13. The Russian "Red" understands American in- 
stitutions as little as does the average American appre- 
ciate the pernicious oppression of the Russian Imperial 
system. In fact the foreigner will laugh in the native 
born American's face and tell him that he is a hypo- 
crite, that his so-called free institutions are only part 
of a system for the exploitation of the laboring man 
and he will cite as proof positive the fact that he 
himself has been apprehended by the police, his meet- 
ings broken up and his friends imprisoned. 8 There are 



See "Illegal Practices of the Department of Justice." 



RADICAL VERSUS CONSERVATIVE 9 

plenty of sincere idealists among the so-called "Reds" 
but they lack complete understanding. Then in addition 
there is a following of selfish men who see in the 
programs of radicals an easy way of gaining material 
goods and properties for their personal enjoyment 
which they might not otherwise obtain. There are 
enough of these to give color to the opinion of the 
free born American that the Bolsheviki are a set of 
hypocrites and scoundrels. But the average American 
lacks understanding of how or why the Bolshevik school 
of thought came into existence. The average American 
is apt also to form quick judgments and generalizations. 
He is likely to include in the category of "Reds" all 
those w T hose ideals and motives* differ radically from 
his own. He fortifies himself behind the declaration 
that he himself is "one hundred percent American." 
Conservatives can only see an immediate menace to 
the established order in the program of the radicals. 
They do not seek and do not understand the motives, 
the desires, or the aspirations that underlie the program. 
On the other hand the radical can see only the policy 
of resistance to any change which appears to actuate 
conservatives, and he can attribute such a policy only 
to self interest. 

14. The two points of view are far apart with 
little chance that either can be brought directly to an 
understanding of the other. The lives which men lead 
are conscripted and narrow. One's vision is limited 
by the small circle of contacts which are the result of 
every day existence. Such an experience of life, as 
is enjoyed by the average man, is not broad enough 
for him to base upon it his conception of the ideal 



10 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

society toward which humanity is struggling and labor- 
ing. The purpose of this volume is to point out a 
very simple method of broadening the social vision 
and of getting an understanding of social needs. I 
do not lay claim to any originality. I do not 
intend to point to anything new. I do, however, 
intend to point to something that is being done but 
of which the real significance is appreciated only by a 
very few. It is my belief that, if this method of 
approach, which, for lack of a better name, I have 
called the "Settlement Idea," can be more popularly 
understood, it will become a common way of life 
and life itself may be rid thereby of many of its com- 
plexities and its misunderstandings. 



CHAPTER II 

THE IDEAS OF THE FOUNDERS 

1. In approaching a study of the social settlement 
it is of value to take a brief survey of the work of 
the founders of the movement. The modern settle- 
ment house has a form which bears a resemblance to 
other present day organizations whose purposes and 
methods differ greatly. Those unacquainted with these 
differences and unfamiliar with the ends sought 
are often confused and misled as to the place 
that the settlement really occupies in society. For 
this reason it is well to go back to the beginning and 
inquire into the original purposes and ideals of the 
founders. 

2. In the first place, the settlement is a creation 
of our Anglo-Saxon race. It had its beginning in 
England. Early in the last century the attention of 
the. English people had been directed to the misery of 
the working people by Harriet Martineau and other 
writers of her type. Robert Owen stood out head 
and shoulders among a group of reformers. Charles 
Kingsley lead his workingmen's clubs. John Ruskin 
and Thomas H. Green were influential at Oxford. 
Finally John R. Green and Samuel A. Barnett were 
the men who conceived the idea of residence among 
the poor of east London, and to the latter belongs 

11 



12 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

the credit for making the first constructive step toward 
the founding of the settlement. 

3. A letter from him written in 1883 was instru- 
mental in bringing several Oxford students to live in 
one of the poorer parts of London. The letter was 
in answer to a request for advice from a group who 
were interested in doing something for the poor. Mr. 
Barnett wrote : "The men might hire a house, where 
they could come for short or long periods and, living 
in an industrial quarter, learn to sup sorrow with the 
poor." One of this group was Arnold Toynbee. A 
personality at Oxford in his student days, Toynbee, 
made a fellow and lecturer in economics, became a 
powerful influence for social improvement. He made 
a special study of the Industrial Revolution and its 
effect upon the workingman, and in addition to this, 
he took up a vigorous campaign of platform speaking. 
The strain was too much for him for he died in 1883 
at the age of only 31, leaving the incompleted notes 
for his projected book. But in spite of his early death 
it was Toynbee who had inspired the little group at 
Oxford to take an active interest in the struggles of 
the poor. Accordingly when Canon Barnett brought 
his group to live in an industrial quarter of London, 
and when a house was established to meet their grow- 
ing needs and the desire was felt to give it a name 
which would be, as Mrs. Barnett put it, "free from 
every possible savor of a mission," it was made a 
memorial to Arnold Toynbee and called Toynbee Hall. 

4. Toynbee Hall was founded in July, 1884, by 
the University Settlement Association acting as a 
committee for Oxford and Cambridge Universities. 



THE IDEAS OF THE FOUNDERS 13 

Property was bought and the house refitted, with 
lecture and meeting rooms as well as living quarters 
for the residents. Canon Samuel A. Barnett, both 
on account of his knowledge of the district of White 
Chapel and the fact that his had been the original 
suggestion, was made the first warden. The following 
is from the first report of the Association : 

5. "As a means whereby the thought, energy 
and public spirit of the University may be brought 
into the direct presence of the social and econom- 
ic problems of our times, the value of the experi- 
ment cannot be overrated. The main difficulty of 
poor city neighborhoods, where the toilers who 
create our national prosperity are massed apart, 
is that they have few friends and helpers who 
can study and relieve their difficulties, few points 
of contact with the best thoughts and aspirations 
of their age, few educated public-spirited residents, 
such as elsewhere in England uphold the tone of 
Local Life and enforce the efficiency of Local 
Self-Government. In the relays of men arriving 
year by year from the Universities in London 
to study their professions or to pursue their inde- 
pendent interests, there are many free from the 
tie,s of later life, who might fitly choose themselves 
to live amongst the poor, to give up to them a 
portion of their lives, and endeavor to fill the 
social void. 

"It is an enterprise, which if patiently main- 
tained and effectually developed, cannot but beget 
experience which will react most practically upon 



14 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

the thought of the educated classes upon whom, 
in a democratic country, falls so deep a responsi- 
bility for local and central good government .... 
The Council lays down its work with the hope 
that . . . each member of the Association will 
do his utmost to kindle an interest in the condi- 
tion of the people, amongst men as they come 
up to the Universities. The solution of the Social 
Question lies in the thought of the young men 
of England." 

6. In his first report as warden, Canon Barnett 
says : "A review of our three months' life together 
in Toynbee Hall leaves me conscious that too much 
has come to our hands to do. ... It may be well 
to group the occupations of the residents as Teachers, 
Citizens, Hosts. . . . Yet it is impossible to group 
all that has been done under these heads. To our 
visitors entertainment may have seemed to be the 
object to which the residents have attached the most 
importance. It is not so. The best work has been 
done more secretly, when two or three have met 
week by week and have learned the truth from one 
another." 

7. In 1886 an American, Stanton Coit, went to 
live at Townbee Hall. The following winter Dr. Coit 
returned and with his friend, Charles B. Stover took 
up his residence in Forsythe Street on the lower 
East Side. Out of this experiment grew the Neighbor- 
hood Guild, founded 1887, the first social settlement 
in America. In 1891 the name was changed to the 
University Settlement and a report was issued. Refer- 



THE IDEAS OF THE FOUNDERS 15 

ence to this report gives an insight into some of its 
early problems and aims. The following is from 
the Constitution: 

"The work of the Society calls for men who 
will reside in the Neighborhood House and give 
to the people of the neighborhood a large part of 
their time and services; it calls also for men and 
women who can give it but a small portion of 
their time, but who are willing to assist by taking 
charge of the kindergarten class, clubs for boys 
and girls, meetings and entertainments for men 
and women; it calls for subscriptions and dona- 
tions from all who believe that good results can 
be accomplished by bringing men and women of 
education into closer relation with the laboring 
classes." 

8. Speaking of Toynbee and Oxford Halls in Lon- 
don and of the Neighborhood Guild in New York 
the first report continues : "In all three institutions 
the ends sought have been much the same, viz., the 
cultivation of friendly relations between the educated 
and uneducated, and the gradual uplifting of the latter 
by the better influences thus brought to bear upon 
them. The Neighborhood Guild has endeavored to 
make its house at No. 147 Forsythe Street, the town- 
hall and the club-house of its particular locality — the 
place where the people of the neighborhood could come 
together for special purposes, for lectures, concerts, 
etc., where social clubs and educational classes could 
meet and it has so far succeeded that about two hun- 
dred and fifty people of the neighborhood regularly 



16 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

visit the house, and one hundred more, not members 
of the Guild, attend lectures. The house has also served 
as a residence for three or four workers who have 
regularly visited among their neighbors, performing 
various kindly offices, and thus making friends among 
the people of the vicinity. . . . Excellent results have 
been accomplished and it has been demonstrated that 
educated men and women, living and working among 
the poor, associating with them as equals, but intro- 
ducing into the tenement house all that trained intelli- 
gence and friendly sympathy have to give, can make 
themselves a most efficient means of bettering and 
elevating the mental, moral and physical condition of 
the people. . . . The experiments in London and 
in other foreign cities teach us much, but the great 
difference between the conditions in this city and in 
foreign cities make our social problems in a large 
measure different from theirs, and makes their hard- 
earned knowledge of only general value to us." 

9. In his Report of 1894, Hon. Seth Low, President 
of the Society, said: "One who passes his life in 
the midst of refined surroundings has only to think 
for a moment to realize how little he knows about 
the life of a large part of his fellow-citizens. ... It 
is equally true that the laboring man knows as little 
about the educated and rich people of New York as 
the latter knows about the laboring man. Out of this 
mutual ignorance is bred mutual suspicion and mutual 
distrust. . . . Nothing so well as knowledge based 
upon actual acquaintance can scatter such shadows. 
Everything therefore that tends to make the different 
classes of people that make up the citizenship of this 



THE IDEAS OF THE FOUNDERS IT 

city better acquainted with one another is a step 
toward making the life of our city better in all its 
aspects. The University Settlement Society offers one 
of the very best platforms of the city upon which the 
employer and the laboring man can meet on equal 
terms. It is not so much that other platforms do not 
exist. It is rather that there are very few platforms, 
as a matter of fact, to which such different types of 
men are ready to go. By its services to the people 
of the neighborhood the University Settlement has 
obtained a hearing in the Tenth Ward. This position 
of advantage should be maintained. ... Its capacity 
to be of service is limited only by its ability to com- 
mand men and women who will give their personal 
service to its cause and others who can supply money 
necessary to make effective the machinery that can 
set it in motion." 

10. Two years after the establishment of the Neigh- 
borhood Guild the College Settlement was opened on 
Rivington Street, New York. This was as a field of 
work for an organization of representative college 
women. Some of the workers had visited the English 
Settlement and others had worked with Dr. Coit. 

11. In that same year there was opened in Chicago 
what was destined to become probably the most famous 
social settlement in America. Miss Jane Addams 
and Ellen Gates Starr established Hull House on 
Halsted Street. We will let Miss Addams speak for 
herself: "It is hard," she writes, "to tell just when 
the simple plan which afterwards developed into the 
Settlement began to form itself in my mind. It may 
have been even before I went to Europe for the second 



18 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

time, but I gradually became convinced that it would 
be a good thing to rent a house in a part of the city 
where many primitive and actual needs are found, 
in which young women who had been given over too 
exclusively to study, might restore a balance of activity 
along traditional lines and learn of life from life itself, 
where they might try out some of the things that had 
been sought and put truth to the ultimate test of the 
conduct it dictates or inspires." 

12. It was in 1888 that Miss Addams visited Toyn- 
bee Hall and the People's Palace in East London. In 
later years, in writing of the founding of her own 
settlement she wrote: "It is quite impossible for me 
to say in what proportion or degree the subjective 
necessity which lead to the founding of Hull House 
combined the three trends : ( 1 ) the desire to interpret 
democracy in social terms; (2) the impulse beating 
at the very source of our lives urging us to aid in 
race problems; (3) the Christian movement toward 
humanitarianism. It is difficult to analyze a living 
thing; the analysis is at best imperfect. Many more 
motives may blend with the three trends; possibly the 
desire for a new form of social success due to the 
nicety of imagination which refuses worldly pleasures 
unmixed with the joys of self-sacrifice; possibly a love 
of approbation, so vast that it is not content with the 
treble clapping of delicate hands, but wishes also that 
the base notes from the toughened palms may mingle 
with these. . . . The Settlement, then, is an experi- 
mental effort to aid in the solution of the social and 
industrial problems which are engendered by the 
modern conditions of life in a great city." 



THE IDEAS OF THE FOUNDERS 19 

13. Two years after Hull House was started, a 
third settlement was founded in New York, East Side 
House in the Yorkville District. In the same year 
Professor William J. Tucker established Andover 
House, later to become known as South End House, 
in Boston. Robert A. Woods, just returned from 
studies in England, was made the head worker. The 
settlement movement now became well established in 
America. It was no longer a question of experiment, 
but of success, of force, of vigor and personality, and 
of the individual adaptability of the scores of settle- 
ments, which now sprang up to their respective locali- 
ties. In all the principal cities of the country influential 
houses were established in the early nineties. Chicago 
Commons founded in 1894 by Graham Taylor, and 
Kingsley House in Pittsburgh deserve special mention. 
The reader is referred to the very excellent "Handbook 
of Settlements" prepared by Robert A. Woods and 
Albert J. Kennedy, in which is included some mention 
of all of the known settlement centers both in the 
United States and abroad. 

But before passing to the discussion of the settle- 
ment as it exists today, one more figure must be men- 
tioned. Although he will not be remembered primarily 
as a settlement worker, no discussion of the launching 
of the movement in America would be complete with- 
out mention of the name of the late Jacob A. Riis. 
As he himself stated a short time before his death, 
he had found that he had a pen and a tongue and he 
used them in bringing home to the nation a knowledge 
of living conditions in industrial quarters. His books 
popularized the subject. He was notably the educator 



20 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

of the early reform movement in New York, though 
his work was not confined to the city alone. He 
exerted a far reaching influence over the new genera- 
tion by his lectures at schools and colleges. It was 
Jacob Riis' contention that the "Slum" had been 
abolished. Certain it is, that crowded and filthy as 
the tenement districts of our large cities still are, they 
are not the "slums" which disgraced our civilization 
in the closing quarter of the last century. The name 
of Richard Watson Gilder of New York is another 
which will long be remembered as one of the greatest 
influences for good in the battle of the eighties and 
nineties against unwholesome living conditions. The 
vigorous personality of the youthful Theodore Roose- 
velt, who was at that time the city's police commis- 
sioner, was a powerful influence in sustaining the work 
of Riis and Gilder, 



CHAPTER III 

THE INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITY 

1. In the mushroom industrial cities of a world, 
whose imagination was being fired by the newly re- 
vealed potentialities of machinery, conditions had 
arisen, never experienced before, which were bringing 
about misadjustments in the social system, with which 
neither the moral nor the intellectual capacities of the 
community were able to cope. In England particularly, 
the flow of the population to the cities was so rapid 
and so out of proportion to the capacity of the manu- 
factories and collieries to absorb the "hands" that 
the very greatest suffering was unavoidable and a 
distinct lowering of the standards of living resulted. 
The increased use of labor saving devices which was 
the stimulus for the increase in manufacturing and 
the consequent growth of the city, was also the cause 
of the decrease in the value of individual hand labor. 
The plight of the low grade unskilled workman there- 
fore became worse and worse until he was forced into 
a condition of abject poverty and "wage slavery." 

2. As the immediate result of the introduction of 
machinery, the market value of labor had fallen so 
low that society was powerless economically to care 
for its lower strata. The lowest grade of worker 
was unable to maintain himself upon the wages paid 

21 



22 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

even if he labored all of the time, and it must be remem- 
bered that he could not work all of the time but only 
when his employers needed his assistance. It is hard 
writing in this day of after war high wages to appre- 
ciate the plight of the industrial worker of a hundred 
years ago. 4 It is difficult even to think back over the 
last twenty or thirty years and realize the hopelessness 
of the wage earner's situation as it appeared then. 
I can do no more here than to attempt briefly to sketch 
the character of the economic changes of the so-called 
Industrial Revolution of the Eighteenth and Nine- 
teenth Centuries. For a better understanding of the 
subject as well as of contemporary thought which has 
sought to remedy existing evils I must refer the 
reader to the special bibliography at the end of the 
volume which has been prepared to assist in the study 
of social conditions. 

3. Let us picture to ourselves first a typical develop- 
ment in one of the industries of our country. In early 
Colonial times the itinerant bootmaker went from home 
to home working upon shoes which he made from the 
leather that was supplied him. There is the record of 
an early charter issued to the shoemakers of Boston 
in 1648 which was modeled on the British guilds of 
that day, which states that the shoemaker established 
in his own shop shall not "refuse to make shoes for 
any inhabitant at reasonable rates of their owne leather." 
We find that the craftsmen now in possession of his 



4 Since this writing a wage decline has set in. Again there is 
the problem of unemployment. Considered in its relation to 
purchasing power undoubtedly the position of the wage earner has 
improved in the past one hundred years. 



THE INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITY 23 

shop carried on what was known as "bespoke work" 
for special orders as well as an inferior quality of 
"shop work" that he might have ready to hand some- 
thing with which to supply his casual customer. The 
early charters granted by the Colonies to special guilds 
were similar to the British, and gave to the trades 
the right to examine their craftsmen and obtain orders 
from the court suppressing anyone who was not "a 
sufficient workman." 

4. As the next step in the development we find the 
small shopkeeper employing more journeymen and 
making more effort to sell his wares. We read of 
New England shopkeepers risking their lives in a 
journey by sea to southern ports, there to secure 
"orders at a very low figure." We find records of 
disputes arising from the effort of wholesalers of 
this type to reduce their journeymen's wages. We 
find here an early type of capitalist, who employed a 
larger number of journeymen, but who had to secure 
over and above the wages he paid a profit on his 
venture. The next stage of development we discover 
in the merchant capitalist. We can realize the benefit 
of the maintenance of a warehouse in a convenient 
location in the business district of the growing Colonial 
cities. The manufacturer, however, could not amass 
sufficient capital to have his own individual ware- 
house. We find in consequence, a merchant owning 
such a warehouse where the goods of many manu- 
facturers in different branches of industry were offered 
for sale. This removes by still another step the maker 
of a pair of shoes from the consumer. Originally the 
maker supplied the consumer's wants directly by going 



24 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

to his house and creating the article desired, taking 
his profit in the form of direct payment. We now 
find the maker receiving a wage for his labor while 
the product of his labor belongs to the master mechanic 
or manufacturer who incurs the responsibility of dis- 
posing of the product for a profit. Finally we find 
the manufacturer sharing a portion of his profit with 
the merchant for the service rendered of actually mar- 
keting the article. 

5. I recite these points in the development of our 
industrial system because of their close relation to the 
change in the status of the worker. While the develop- 
ment was caused partly by the introduction of machin- 
ery, in a sense it was partly this development that 
demanded the discovery of some method for increasing 
production. This is especially true of the United 
States. It had been the policy of the original Colonies 
to foster and encourage manufactures. This had been 
done by special grants and privileges. After the Revolu- 
tion, with the resumption of foreign trade, the Ameri- 
can manufacturer found himself unable to compete 
with improved European methods of production. The 
British Parliament prohibited the exportation of tools 
and machinery ; designs or models were not allowed to 
be taken out of the country. The Americans, thrown 
on their own resources, tried two means of surmount- 
ing the difficulty. The first was a political method, 
namely the imposition of a tariff on foreign goods. 
The second was the attempt to devise methods of their 
own for increasing production. In the early eighteen 
hundreds we find all of the guilds and trades associa- 
tions offering bounties and premiums to those who 



THE INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITY 25 

could devise "inventions and improvements in their 
art." With the discovery and introduction of these 
"improvements" which in general took the form of 
machinery we find a great increase in the capital invest- 
ment required of the manufacturer. He was required 
not only to provide a place for his journeymen to 
work but to provide in addition the new machinery 
which was to make possible the increased production. 
Of a consequence the business had to pay the wages of 
labor, earn an interest on capital invested, pay a com- 
mission on marketing charges, and reward the capitalist 
sufficiently to compensate him for the risk of the enter- 
prise. 

6. This is not an account of the development of 
the capitalistic system. The reason that I have given 
this brief outline is to make clear the change that the 
status of the workman had undergone from the latter 
part of the eighteenth to the first half of the nineteenth 
century. It is a difficult question to understand and 
one which varies with the industry and with local 
conditions. Briefly stated the change is from the 
individual craftsman to the factory system of produc- 
tion. Was this change accompanied by a change in 
the social status and in the living conditions of this 
growing class of wage earners? Most certainly it 
was. We have only to call to mind the growth of our 
early industrial towns and to picture to ourselves again 
their squalor and hopelessness. We find continual 
records of protest in the early part of the nineteenth 
century on the part of labor organizations against 
immigration, and we find charges laid that the capi- 
talists by seeking the cheapest labor available were 



26 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

impoverishing the native sons of the country. The 
European Revolutions of 1848 sent a still greater flood 
of immigrants to the United States, which, suffering 
from industrial depression following the panic of 1837, 
was not able to assimilate the unfortunates from abroad 
without materially lowering the prevailing standards 
of wages and living conditions. The result was a 
repetition in America of the unfortunate conditions 
which the Industrial Revolution had brought about in 
Europe. 

7. The wage of the skilled worker began to de- 
cline as he was forced to meet the competition of the 
increased supply of unskilled labor. The case of the 
shoe-makers in the town of Lynn is typical. It became 
impossible to support a family upon the declining wage. 
As a result, other members of the family went out 
to seek employment in the factory, thereby increasing 
the supply of unskilled labor and bringing the average 
wage down still further. The family was able to 
subsist, however, upon the combined income of parents 
and children and such substance as was yielded by 
primitive back yard farming. The family wage thus 
became the standard and the children were signed over 
to the factory system. Though the evils of child labor 
were far worse in England than in the United States, 
the system became so firmly intrenched, that even 
humane employers, honestly desirous of bettering con- 
ditions, found themselves brought face to face with 
the alternative of accepting the prevailing standards 
or being forced to the wall by the competition of the 
more unscrupulous taskmasters. 

All through the first half of the last century the 



THE INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITY 27 

condition of the American wage earner was growing 
worse. The prevailing working day averaged over 
twelve hours. It must be remembered that the right 
to vote had been limited to property holders up to 
about 1820-1822. In 1829-30 there was an acute con- 
dition of unemployment. The files of the contemporary 
daily papers are loud in their appeals for help for the 
great numbers of skilled mechanics unable to obtain 
any kind of occupation. In March, 1850, the chief 
of police of New York City took a census of the 
inhabited cellars. It was found that 18,456 persons 
occupied 8,141 cellars with no other rooms. This 
meant that about one-thirtieth of the population of 
New York City lived underground. 6 

8. As a protest against such conditions we find the 
rise of a group of "idealist reformers" and writers. 
Robert Owen came to America to try his unsuccessful 
experiment at New Harmony, Indiana. America itself 
produced Thoreau, Emerson, Walt Whitman, Chan- 
ning, Brownson, Albert Brisbane, and Horace Greeley. 
All kinds and descriptions of Co-operative and Mutual 
Aid societies sprang into existence. There were land 
reform associations and associations that sought the 
improvement of factory conditions. Besides these 
organizations of the intellectuals there were organiza- 
tions of the laborers themselves. There were to be 
noted the growing frequency of strikes and the first 
beginnings of an organized national labor movement 
in the United States. It must be recalled that as the 
nineteenth century drew into its last quarter, the opposi- 

8 See Part IV, Chapter I of Commons, "History of Labor in 
the U. S." 



28 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

tion of the interests of capital and labor seemed to be 
more and more sharply defined and, as labor became 
better and more thoroughly organized, the opposition 
grew into open contest and bitter dispute. 

9. In England where the difficulties were even 
more acute than in America, the movement for reform 
was also widespread. Only a few years previous to 
the time when Canon Barnett started his settlement, 
the Salvation Army had issued its challenge to the 
world. The so-called "home mission" had also come 
into being. Both of these movements represented the 
viewpoint of men who believed that "wickedness" 
among the working people was responsible for their 
degradation. The missions and the Salvation Army 
set out to "save" the lower classes. Quite a different 
attitude was taken by another type of reformer, the 
so-called Christian Socialist, as represented by John 
Ruskin, Charles Kingsley, and William Morris. They 
decried the growing importance of machinery and 
attempted to dignify and glorify hand labor, insisting 
that the position of the working man was one which 
should not be looked down upon. Another group 
known as the Owenites was made up of the followers 
of that industrial genius Robert Owen. As a suc- 
cessful mill manager he was without a peer in the 
England of his time. Better work, he said, was the 
logical result of better conditions of life. He insisted 
that a fair portion of his phenomenal profits should 
be applied towards creating more favorable home 
environment. His program embraced both shorter 
working hours and better educational facilities. His 
especial interest, however, was the model community. 



THE INDUSTRIAL COMMUNITY 29 

It was in this connection that he made his trip to 
America. 

10. All over nineteenth century Europe the protest 
against industrial conditions was vocal. In France, 
Fourier put forward his version of the model com- 
munity. Saint Simon wrote voluminously upon a plan 
for remodeling society. The influence of the writings 
of Rousseau in the century preceding must not be lost 
sight of. His was an ideal of a political state and it 
was this ideal that had dominated the Terror of the 
first Revolution. After the political collapse and 
reaction, the revolutionary influence of German social- 
ism helped to keep a French revolutionary party active. 
It must be remembered that in the critical period 
1870-71 the Communes actually established their power 
in Paris and maintained it for a few months. 

11. In Germany itself the socialists were intel- 
lectually the dominating factor in the movement for 
industrial and economic reform. In 1848 Karl Marx 
and Frederick Engels published their "Communist 
Manifesto." They held that the selfishness of the 
"ruling classes" was the cause of the sufferings of 
the poor. In the words of Engels himself their doc- 
trine was: "that the whole history of mankind (since 
the dissolution of primitive tribal society holding land 
in common ownership) has been a history of class 
struggles, contests between exploiting and exploited, 
ruling and oppressed classes; that the history of these 
class struggles forms a series of evolutions in which, 
nowadays, a stage has been reached where the exploited 
and the oppressed class — the proletariat — cannot attain 
its emancipation from the sway of the exploiting and 



30 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

ruling classes — the bourgeoisie — without at the same 
time, and once for all, emancipating society at large 
from all exploitation, oppression, class distinctions and 
class struggles." In other words the German school 
of socialists which included Lassalle, Engels and Marx 
was actively revolutionary. They held that poverty 
must be abolished; that the capitalists will never permit 
it to be abolished because it is to their interest to 
obtain the cheapest labor possible and for this reason 
to keep a certain portion of the available labor supply 
near to the starvation point. Therefore, they con- 
tended, the proletariat, the workers must arise and 
take that wealth which they themselves have created 
under the lash of their exploiters. 

12. Although Russia in the nineteenth century was 
behind the rest of Europe in industrial development, 
criticism of existing conditions was no less evident 
among the writers of the period. In Russia, however, 
the question which was uppermost w y as "land." The 
conflict was between landowner and serf rather than 
between industrial worker and manufacturer. The 
novelists Tolstoi, Dostoieffsky and Turgenev reflect 
the growth of the intellectual revolt against the suffer- 
ings entailed by the existing order of things. 

13. I have briefly touched upon these various at- 
tempts at reform and particularly upon the teachings 
of the so-called scientific socialists of Germany, because 
I wished to present them to American readers in the 
twentieth century in the light of their' historical origin. 
I am not subscribing to the various doctrines pro- 
claimed. I merely desire to point out that their reason 
for being was the widely felt desire to relieve the 



THE IxNDUSTRIAL COMMUNITY 31 

suffering of the poor whose condition had been grow- 
ing steadily worse from the latter half of the eighteenth 
century through the greater part of the nineteenth. 

The sincerity of the work of the socialists is as 
evident as the sincerity of Canon Barnett's method. 
There is, however, an essential difference in funda- 
mentals. The socialist doctrine is based on the anti- 
pathy of class interests and the concept of the class 
war. It proclaims the failure of the capitalistic system 
and aims at public rather than private ownership of 
property, claiming that the private owner because of 
his class interest cannot be trusted. Class interest, 
however, is only one form of natural human selfishness. 
The socialists have the same human qualities to deal 
with in the administration of public property. The 
socialist hypothesis contemplates the victory of one 
class over another and the abolition of the property 
holding or ruling class. In reality the fact must be 
faced that a new "administrative" class is substituted 
for the ruling class. The same human frailities are 
to be found in these new guardians of property unless 
they can be inspired by a realisation of social values 
so that all men are actuated solely by a desire to serve 
the social body. When socialists are faced with this 
fact they come up against the first hypothesis of Canon 
Barnett's method of approach. He founded his settle- 
ment believing that if men understood social condi- 
tions they would awaken to a realization of the identity 
of the interests shared by what are apparently different 
classes, and govern their actions so as to promote the 
greatest social good. The assumption is that if men 
realized the consequences of material selfishness they 



32 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

would not be selfish. To me this is the most sub- 
stantial foundation stone for social reform. It is cer- 
tainly a better starting point than the assumption that 
all men are so selfish that they will not change their 
way of doing things unless compelled by force. 

14. It must be remembered that Canon Barnett 
began his work in an atmosphere of antagonism and 
distrust when comparatively few men were awake to 
the need of a new outlook upon life. Today we are 
far enough from the industrial revolution to look back 
and analyze the forces that were working havoc with 
society. We have just passed through the greatest 
war in history which has quickened in men the habit 
of questioning and seeking after something better. 
Ours is the opportunity of applying on a greater scale 
a conception and a method wherein lies a great hope. It 
is possible for any man to extend his circle of living 
to meet laboring men and by offering himself as a 
friend learn to understand the laboring man's point of 
view, his despairs and his aspirations. 



CHAPTER IV 

FIRST CONTACT WITH THE SETTLEMENT 

1. Not very long ago a stranger visiting New 
York City wanted to see the high buildings. The 
inspiration came to me to take him across the Brooklyn 
Bridge at about dusk so that as we walked back towards 
Manhattan the lights were coming on in the thousands 
of windows. As we neared the middle of the bridge 
we paused to watch the marvelous effect of the night 
enveloping the gleaming fairylike structures. Sud- 
denly the stranger, turning his glance, noticed that there 
was complete darkness to the north of the bridge. 
"That's the East Side," I said, in explanation. But 
he wanted to know why it was not like the rest of 
the city. I explained that there were more people 
living there huddled together to the square foot than 
in any city in the world and that most of the houses 
did not have electricity. "What a contrast," he said 
as he looked back at the flashing buildings, "I never 
realized it was so near before." 

2. The next day the stranger wanted to learn 
more, so we left the City Hall and walked out Madison 
Street, up Pitt Street, and then Avenue A to Fourteenth 
Street. It was a fairly comprehensive tour of those 
great neighborhoods commonly designated as the 
"Lower East Side." We made detours into Canal, 

33 



34 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

Rivington, Delancey, and Grand Streets, all important 
and busy thoroughfares, and the stranger learned one 
thing at least, that the East Side was not asleep. Busi- 
ness and industry cluttered up the streets, the sidewalks, 
the doorways, the halls and even the bedrooms of the 
over-crowded tenements. Everyone was trading or 
bargaining or hurrying somewhere with something. 
The children dodged pushcarts and trucks with equal 
ease. A pungent vegetable smell pervaded the air. 
The signs carried inscriptions in strange languages. 
There were dark doorways and long dark halls with 
a vista at the end of a drab back yard and perhaps 
an antiquated rear tenement beyond. In many cases 
the rooms inside were reached by long flights of 
wooden stairs, then more long dark hallways illumin- 
ated sometimes by a faint ray of daylight from a four 
foot court. 

The stranger, who is unfamiliar with tenement con- 
ditions, is invariably impressed with the drab appear- 
ance of such a neighborhood, the eternal sameness and 
the eternal hopelessness of it all. 

3. The average settlement is fairly conspicuous in 
such an atmosphere. Sandwiched in between tenement 
houses, perhaps actually occupying one of the old 
buildings, it will nevertheless wear a more cheerful 
aspect. A few judiciously placed flower boxes will 
advertise its presence. There may be a chattering 
group on the sidewalk. In the foyer there will be 
another group talking and seemingly not very much 
concerned about anything likely to happen. 

4. It is a difficult task to adequately describe the 
impressions of one's first visit to a settlement. To 



FIRST CONTACT WITH SETTLEMENT 35 

begin with, it makes a difference who you are. One 
is likely to forget that we always look at things through 
colored glasses as it were. The glasses represent our 
past experience, our natural background. When we 
look upon new things, we instinctively relate them to 
things that we already know. We compare things, we 
judge by standards. This accounts for the widely 
different first impressions that one gets of the settle- 
ment. 

5. It sometimes happens that an apparently normal 
minded man will ask a conventionally minded friend 
to visit a settlement with him. It may be that the 
guest will go with some uncertainty as to whether 
there is to be revealed to him a sentimental weakness 
or possibly a religious fanaticism, heretofore unsus- 
pected in his friend. A favorite method of introduc- 
tion is to get the srtanger to take dinner with the 
residents. It will be a varied company. The women 
will probably be in the majority. There will be young 
women and middle aged ; there will be the well dressed 
attractive type and beside her the so-called "New Eng- 
land schoolmarm." There will be long haired men in 
soft collars, whom the uninitiated will instantly suspect 
of socialism, as well as short haired men in business 
suits with conventional neck gear. There will be the 
inevitable buzz of conversation. Almost everyone will 
openly avow a genuine interest in what everyone else 
is doing and real importance will be attached to dis- 
cussion of general topics of the day. There will be 
talking across the table, questionings, banterings, hasty 
opinions snapped and well considered opinions weighed. 
It is very possible that the visitor may feel himself 



36 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

talked to, cornered, even patronized by some one whom 
he does not know, asked to come again and almost 
forced to accept an invitation for the following week. 

I recite here the first impression of an actual settle- 
ment household. Sometimes one's experience is the 
opposite. I have sat at residents' tables and dragged 
through a meal making conversation about some trivial 
subject and without receiving the impression that the 
residents had one single atom of life or intelligence 
in their make up. The residents' table is very often 
the key to the spirit of the house. 

6. The first impression of a settlement, however, 
is not always received through contact with the workers. 
Sometimes one will enter a settlement for the first time 
during the course of an evening when everything is 
running full blast. The bewildered visitor will be 
taken around and shown things. Most evident will be 
a gymnasium, filled with noisy athletes. It may be 
that the room will be given over to a dance and be 
filled with a crowd of happy and prosperous looking 
young people. It has been my privilege to give a 
great many people their first sight of a settlement and 
the comments elicited by the sight of the laughing 
crowd in the gymnasium have been most interesting. 
One man told me after coming several evenings, that 
he did not think he could give any more of his time. 
He said he felt that he could have given his time to 
relieve actual suffering but that the people who came 
to the settlement were all pretty well off anyway. His 
had evidently been only a superficial acquaintance, he 
had seen neither into the homes nor the hearts of 
those with whom he had come in contact. On the 



FIRST CONTACT WITH SETTLEMENT 37 

other hand, I remember the experience of an emotional 
and sympathetic lady who had shown rare ability in 
assisting at the dances, dramatics, and other "evening 
affairs." Her usual method for getting to the settle- 
ment had been in the security of her motor, when the 
dinginess of the neighborhood had been cloaked in 
darkness. She came one morning in a clanging trolley 
through pushcart crowded street with the squalor of 
the garbage strewn courts bearing down upon her, and 
the pathos of the children sitting along the gutters 
playing upon her emotions. By the time she reached 
the settlement she was not the same woman that 
had presided so light-heartedly at the masques and 
dances. 

One of the greatest sources of mystery to the casual 
visitor is the average settlement club. He has great 
difficulty in understanding its purposes. He insists 
generally upon calling it "a class." He assigns peculiar 
and limited reasons for its existence. I remember the 
case of a gentleman, who had been asked to be guest 
of honor at a club meeting, whose evident assumption 
was that the purpose of the club was to teach parlia- 
mentary procedure for he made the boys a speech, 
the burden of which was that he hoped that each 
and every one of them would realize his ambition and 
end up in Congress. Another visitor was shocked to 
learn that at some of the open forums at the settlement 
such subjects as socialism were discussed. One in- 
terested student sent for a visit to the settlement by 
his college Y. M. C. A., believing New York's lower 
east side to be an iniquitous resort, returned after 
seeing several "east side dance halls," to report to his 



38 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

fellow students : "Boys, it isn't like what you'd think! 
The dance halls weren't immoral at all!" 

7. It is difficult to understand the settlement idea 
until one has carefully analyzed it. It has many sides 
and what is often the most evident is not of necessity 
the most important function. As Canon Barnett said, 
writing fourteen years after his first report, "Toynbee 
Hall seems to its visitors to be a center of education, 
a mission, a center of social effort. It may be so, but 
the visitors miss the truth that the place is a club house 
in Whitechapel occupied by men who do citizens' 
duty in the neighborhood. The residents are not as a 
body concerned for education, teetotalism, poor relief, 
or any special or sectarian object." It is often difficult 
for the outsider to discover what is the real underlying 
source of concern to the settlement worker. The rea- 
sons for the difficulty are the complexity of the activi- 
ties themselves as well as the fact that what is often 
the most apparent to an observer is not necessarily the 
most fundamental or important work that is being 
carried on. 

8. Of course it is evident at the outset that the 
people of the neighborhood who go to the settlement 
must have very different needs and purposes than have 
the residents who live there or even the volunteers 
whose activity is limited to regular visits to the house. 
Both the residents and the volunteers are representa- 
tive of a class of people who have enjoyed peculiar 
advantages of education and position in society, while 
in general the people of the neighborhood represent 
those whose opportunities in life have been far more 
limited. 



FIRST CONTACT WITH SETTLEMENT 39 

9. The obvious conclusion is that the first purpose 
of the settlement is to give to the people of the neigh- 
borhood some of the advantages which unfortunately 
have been denied to them. In a sense this is true, but 
in a sense only. The most immediate work that the 
settlement does is to give help where it is wanted but 
to give that help in a constructive way, so that, besides 
assisting immediately the individual in question, prog- 
ress is at the same time made toward removing the 
social need for giving that particular kind of help to 
other individuals. To cite an example : a certain settle- 
ment in New York was called upon for assistance for 
distress arising out of gross negligence in a maternity 
case. Investigation revealed that a number of incom- 
petent, dirty, and ignorant people were practicing mid- 
wifery in the neighborhood. Further research dis- 
closed the fact that there was practically no control 
over the practice. As a result of this study all mid- 
wives in the city of New York must now be properly 
licensed before being permitted to practice. 

10. In all of the work that the settlement is com- 
pelled to do it is not always so easy to distinguish the 
constructive social results that are sought after. A 
great deal of necessary work by its very nature can 
effect only those few who come directly into contact 
with the settlement and its staff of workers. When 
within the compass of a single tenement block many 
thousands live, who suffer continually for want of 
proper education and frequently for want of proper 
clothing, food and shelter, it is not encouraging to 
realize that the settlement at best may reach perhaps 
a hundred among the thousands. What the settlement 



40 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

is able to do, in answer to the diversity of demands 
that are made upon it, seems pitifully little when the 
actual need is considered. It is well to emphasize at 
this juncture to those who are discouraged, when they 
realize the small part that the settlement plays in giving 
immediate relief, that, as Canon Barnett said, it is not 
in this quarter that we are to look for the ultimate 
service that the settlement can render to society. 

11. The workings of the average settlement defy 
tabulation and analysis. Not only is it perfectly im- 
possible for any one man to know of all of the things 
which are being done by even the settlement in which 
he is living and working but in no two settlements 
is the method or the emphasis the same and in no one 
of them does it remain constant. To be alive the 
settlement must continually be taking up new problems 
and seeking new ways with which to approach the older 
and more baffling questions. I realize that no analysis 
that I can make can come within a measurable distance 
of covering the field. It is nevertheless necessary to 
attempt some sort of classification. 

12. The settlement has a first hand contact first 
with its neighbors as individuals, secondly with the 
families of the neighborhood and thirdly with the neigh- 
borhood itself. It has also a direct relation to the 
city and to the state. It is in short an agency for 
interpreting society to itself in terms of the individuals 
and of the groups of individuals that go to make up 
the social body. It has to deal both with the individual 
as a unit within the group and as an absolute individual. 
A large part of its task is to educate the individual to 
an understanding of his social relation to the group. 



FIRST CONTACT WITH SETTLEMENT 41 

In addition there is the equally important task of 
educating the large group to an understanding and 
appreciation of the needs and limitations of the smaller 
component groups and of the individual. For the 
present we will limit ourselves to the discussion of the 
most immediate contacts of the settlement, namely 
with individuals and with the family. 

13. The individuals who come to the settlement 
are of all ages and both sexes. The age divisions 
represent very young children, juniors, intermediates 
and seniors. There are fewer older people than there 
are numbers in any one of the divisions of young 
people. Within the age divisions there are classifica- 
tions representing the different needs, capacities and 
tastes of the individuals. Among the younger people 
the club is the most usual unit which at once classifies 
the requirements of its members and furnishes the 
means of contact between the individual and the settle- 
ment. 

14. The club system is an outgrowth of a natural 
development. By the time the average boy is eleven 
or twelve years old he tends to run with a gang. The 
gang is naturally invited into the settlement and as 
a result the club is evolved. As a rule both girls' and 
boys' departments are organized under the club system. 
With the older people this spirit is not so strong. The 
point of contact is more likely to be because of interest 
in the family or through general sympathy with the 
activities of the house. Before we are in a position to 
discuss club work in detail or to enter into any com- 
prehensive study of the various other intricate influ- 
ences and activities of the settlement, we must come 



42 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

to an understanding of certain principles and must 
arrive at some sort of definite answer to several funda- 
mental questions. 

15. What do the many individualities with their 
varying tastes who come to the settlement seek ? What 
are their needs ? Is there something among their multi- 
tude of desires that they crave in common? First 
and foremost they seek recreation ; and by that I mean 
re-creation in the broadest sense of the word. Scarcely 
less eagerly, though perhaps not with the same degree 
of self consciousness, they seek education. I believe 
that the great mass of men, women and young people, 
considered as individuals, are seeking to satisfy one 
or both of these ends, when they turn to settlements, 
and I mean here to include church houses and allied 
associations such as the Y. M. C. A. and Y. M. H. A. 

16. When the family comes to the settlement the 
case is somewhat different. Generally aid is sought 
because of acute distress where neither the individual 
nor the united efforts of the family are capable of 
bringing relief. The two major difficulties are health 
and financial distress. Another frequent cause of 
trouble involving the family is conduct. 

17. The immediate articulate demands that are 
made on the settlement by individuals or by families 
may be summarized therefore by these five captions: 
recreation, education, health, financial distress, and 
conduct. Because I have assigned the first two to 
needs that are most likely to be expressed through 
individuals, I do not mean to imply that the demand 
is restricted in that sense, nor do I mean to imply that 
the last three types of calls come only through the 



FIRST CONTACT WITH SETTLEMENT 43 

family. I have made this classification, because it 
expresses the most usual course of things. It must 
not be supposed for one instant, that the demands, 
which I have set down above are special demands made 
only upon the settlement. They are the natural de- 
mands which have always become vocal whenever 
human life is cramped and deprived of proper outlet. 
In a certain measure there have always been those 
who have striven to keep human life fresh and whole- 
some and where there has been recognition of a need, 
there has been an attempt to fill it. The way that this 
has been done has been dependent upon the viewpoint 
of those who have attempted to answer the demand. 
18. The founding of "home missions" for in- 
stance was an original attempt on the part of those 
who felt that the greatest human need was to stamp 
out wickedness. The movement was inspired by a 
desire to "rescue" the poor man from degradation and 
to protect him from evil. It might be said that the 
attitude of mind of the directing forces was controlled 
by the wickedness point of view. Now in all move- 
ments for social betterment the point of view of the 
forces directing the movement is of the utmost im- 
portance. There exist movements whose point of view 
is strictly sectarian and whose chief effort is to gain 
adherents who can be made to subscribe to the rules 
of the particular sect. It cannot be denied that such 
adherence to a set of rules is undoubtedly a valuable 
influence in regulating conduct. Then there is the 
distress relief viewpoint. Nineteenth Century "charity" 
was largely concerned with giving outright for the 
relief of the poor in distress. There will probably 



44 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

always exist the need for immediate relief in cases 
of emergency but it is now generally recognized that 
the giving of such relief does absolutely nothing toward 
relieving the causes of such distress. So also of the 
health viewpoint. There is today no social need more 
widely recognized than that of caring for those suffer- 
ing from sickness or disease. Our well organzied hos- 
pital system attests the truth of this. But it is known 
that mal-nutrition, bad air, and bad housing conditions 
are the direct causes of most sickness and disease. It 
is recognized that unsatisfactory industrial conditions 
have played a dominating and many times a merciless 
part in the undoing of the workman and the laborer. 
At times industry has not seemed able to support the 
population in health and happiness. Looking at the 
social problem from this angle, one can understand the 
strictly economic point of view which interprets 
economics in terms of unyielding law. 

19. It was the growth of the friendly or humani- 
tarian view point which first inspired the form of 
living which has developed into the settlement idea. 
The spirit of humility and open mindedness, which 
dominated this latter movement, made it possible to 
attempt to analyze economic theory, and to add to it a 
realization that the social desires of man may be organ- 
ized to control economic law. It might be said that 
the resultant has been the development of the modern 
socio-economic viewpoint which takes into considera- 
tion social organization and the relation thereto of 
human needs and motives. At the present writing 
this is the broadest conceivable ground for an approach 
to the problem of the improvement of human society. 



FIRST CONTACT WITH SETTLEMENT 45 

While taking the broad ground, the settlement recog- 
nizes the value of the many other viewpoints that may 
be taken. It must be concerned in the many differing 
programs that are put forward. It must take an 
active part in many of them but it must not make any 
one of them its primary concern. The central philoso- 
phy of the socio-economic view point must be allowed 
to dominate. This will mean the weighing of all pro- 
grams for their social value. It involves inquiry into 
the agencies existing within the organization of society 
for the satisfaction of human wants as well as inquiry 
into the faults of organization which either retard or 
prevent satisfaction of these wants. In any attempt 
at social improvement the value of the viewpoint of 
the forces directing the improvement cannot be over- 
emphasized. 

20. I have therefore attempted to recapitulate the 
various types of viewpoint which exercise social con- 
trol. 

The wickedness viewpoint. 

The sectarian viewpoint. 

The distress relief viewpoint. 

The educational viewpoint. 

The recreational viewpoint. 

The friendly or humanitarian viewpoint. 

The health viewpoint. 

The industrial viewpoint. 

The economic viewpoint. 

The psychological viewpoint. 

The socio-economic viewpoint. 

If the last named viewpoint may be said to be the 



46 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

dominant factor in social work today, it must be under- 
stood that the other viewpoints are clearly recognized 
as factors bearing a functional relation to the central 
socio-economic philosophy. In the next chapter it will 
be our purpose to inquire into methods of settlement 
work and we shall find the activities organized along 
functional lines which are analagous to these view 
points and which have as their object the fulfillment 
of the five types of demands which the individual and 
the family are likely to make upon the settlement. 



CHAPTER V 

IMMEDIATE DEMANDS AND METHODS OF WORK 

1. When a single organization is called upon to 
stand for and give effective assistance in widely differ- 
ing directions, it must indeed be an organization. It 
cannot haphazard at one time help those who crave 
intellectual culture, those who seek both mental and 
physical relaxation, and those who suffer for lack of 
proper clothing, food, and shelter. 

The usual form, which the organization of the aver- 
age settlement takes, is the subdivision of the activities 
into clubs, classes, gymnasium work, dances, dramatics, 
concerts, illustrated lectures, debating societies, game 
rooms, health work, musical work, art work, case work, 
neighborhood work, and general events of a social 
nature. It is not difficult to see that these activities are 
intended to represent the settlement's answer to the 
demands which are made upon it by the neighborhood. 
To the outsider and to the uninitiated, however, the 
complexity of the miscellaneous forms of work is a 
source of confusion. When one sees a great many 
things being done at the same time, it is not easy 
to arrive at a correct understanding of their interrela- 
tion and of the fundamental purpose governing all of 
them. 

To me it is helpful to think of the settlement as 

47 



48 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

attempting two classes of work: Regular work and 
Extension work. 

2. Regular work consists of those activities which, 
it has been found practical to standardize. The great 
bulk of recreational and educational work is a ready 
subject for standardization. Where it is necessary to 
depend upon a constantly changing set of workers, 
the setting of the standard is a safeguard against the 
unnecessary waste and deterioration of hit and miss 
methods. One might say that the mere maintenance 
of the settlement house at a given level of efficiency 
is regular work. To keep the building itself clean and 
fresh, to provide meeting places and proper leadership 
for the number of clubs connected with the settlement, 
to keep up the purely educational work of the house 
involves the maintenance of a standard. Indeed, it 
is possible to run what is sometimes called a successful 
recreational and educational center without introducing 
one new idea after the original standard has been 
set, or without the workers being compelled to step 
outside the door of their settlement. 

3. No amount of standardization, no matter how 
well it may be carried out, can do away with the neces- 
sity for effective extension work. Where the settle- 
ment becomes a self-contained and self-sufficient institu- 
tion, it begins to lose vitality and it is certain to get 
out of touch with its neighborhood. Work among 
the younger people may still continue unchallenged but 
the older element will begin falling away. When this 
happens it is generally a certain sign that the settle- 
ment is becoming ingrowing. 

It is difficult to make clear just what is meant by 



IMMEDIATE DEMANDS 49 

the term "extension work." It should not be confused 
with the term "extension teaching" as used by our 
universities and schools to denote extending the benefits 
of the university to pupils not connected with it as 
matriculates. I do not intend any such limited mean- 
ing. When I speak of "extension work," I mean 
original work on the part of the settlement, along 
untried lines. When a group of fifteen to twenty 
boys of approximately the same age are organized into 
a club and brought into the settlement under a director, 
it is merely part of the regular work of the house. 
If, however, a special type of club, consisting of say, 
eight or ten boys, were organized to meet weekly, by 
turns, at one of the boy's homes and monthly at the 
settlement, such an enterprise would today be exten- 
sion work. Again, if to meet a particular situation, 
such as the housing shortage, a tenants' association is 
formed with the assistance of the settlement, it is 
extension work. If, on the other hand, a single resi- 
dent or worker at the settlement pays a friendly call 
in the neighborhood, it is one of the simplest types 
of extension work. If, for any particular need, a 
definite survey is organized by the settlement, it is 
another type of the same work. 

The full significance of extension work will be 
better understood after we have come to an under- 
standing of the more permanent benefits of the 
settlement method. It is necessary at this point 
only to stress the fact that no real social progress 
is possible unless great care and thought are con- 
tinually put into the extension work. It is essen- 
tial that due emphasis be placed upon this before 



50 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

we enter into a detailed discussion of the more regular 
activities. 

4. Among all the facilities offered by the settle- 
ment, those for recreation are the most readily made 
use of. There are those who claim that altogether too 
much time and space are given over to recreation. He 
would be a prophet indeed who could draw the line. 
When we recall the incident of the busy man who with- 
drew from settlement work because everybody was 
having such a good time that he felt he wasn't needed, 
we are forced to admit that there was justice in his 
criticism. He had evidently come in contact with 
well standardized regular work. He had not under- 
stood the problem as a whole. 

5. Recreation is one of the fundamental needs of 
all human beings. There are a cultivated few whose 
recreation takes the higher form of inspirational devo- 
tion to one of the arts. Strangely enough the dividing 
line is not drawn here between rich and poor and be- 
tween those who have had the advantages of education 
and those who have not. There are as many among the 
unlearned poor who crave recreation of a higher sort 
as there are those among the educated well-to-do who 
are bored with what they dub "highbrow stuff." No 
doubt but that the settlement can minister here to a 
very real want. The understanding that some forms 
of education may be an intellectual recreation to 
starved minds should answer those critics who contend 
that public educational effort should be "practical" and 
should not aim to reach cultural levels. 

For the great mass of human beings no doubt, recrea- 
tion means principally relaxation. The need is vital. 



IMMEDIATE DEMANDS 51 

Industrial and clerical workers must have relaxation. 
It is a need which society must provide. That society 
does not provide satisfactory or ample opportunities 
has been recognized by many of our great industrial 
concerns, who have gone in some cases to extreme 
lengths to provide recreational facilities for their em- 
ployes. There was hardly a manufacturing concern 
in the United States of importance in the Great War 
that did not have some kind of an organization for 
getting its employes together and giving them decent 
recreational facilities. In many cases the Government, 
in addition to its housing program, undertook to pro- 
vide some means of recreation. There is not space 
to recount here the remarkable progress that was made 
both by the Government and industrial companies dur- 
ing the war. It is significant, however, that manu- 
facturing plants are uniformly anxious to keep up this 
sort of work. "It pays!" But there are countless 
workers who are not benefited by the facilities offered 
by large business. Little has yet been done for em- 
ployes in the municipal, state, and federal civil services. 
Then there are always the backward industries and 
the backward employers. The demands of an indus- 
trial and commercial community for recreation appear 
insatiable and the settlement, in the recreational field 
alone will be taxed to greater limits than it can provide 
for. The settlement must minister to this vital human 
need. The relaxation must be provided. This will 
be the most evident, though not necessarily the most 
important, part of its activities. 

6. When the tired worker has re-created himself 
he will be the better citizen. The settlement must 



52 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

be ready with a more direct appeal to those who are 
grateful and happy for the recreational facilities and 
simple human intercourse they have enjoyed. It is 
just at this point that many social settlements break 
down. It often seems as though the average house had 
nothing further to offer. Where this is true the settle- 
ment is little more useful than the average movie 
house or dance hall and certainly not as desirable 
though perhaps more popular than any church house 
or even one of the small Y. M. C. A.'s. 

7. Intelligent extension work has been one of the 
forces that has kept the settlement movement vital. 
Many of the special investigations have revealed neg- 
lected phases of life and have helped to liberate valua- 
ble social forces. Frequently the need has been suffi- 
cient to warrant the development of a new line of 
activity at the settlement even to the point of standard- 
ization. Take for example the attempt of settlements 
to satisfy the demands made upon them for music and 
for instruction in music. The pioneer in this direction 
was the Music School Settlement in New York. It 
was organized with the avowed purpose of putting a 
special work to the test. It was marvelously success- 
ful. Other settlements in the city were called upon 
to give better opportunities ' for musical work. They 
began to develop "music departments." Today regular 
music schools exist in the majority of the more impor- 
tant houses, and these are joined together in a Federa- 
tion of Music Schools. 

8. Another demand, which has been made upon 
the settlements, is that they supply some outlet for 
those who would express themselves by the graphic 



IMMEDIATE DEMANDS 53 

arts. The desire to draw, to model, or to create is an 
indication of the artist's impulse to express life and 
truth as he understands it. As Robert Browning put it : 

"... we're made so that we love 
First when we see them painted, things we have 

passed 
Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see* 

• • • 

God uses us to help each other so, 
Lending our minds out." 

In settlement neighborhoods, even among those people 
who have had few educational advantages, there are 
minds who see life clearly. The settlement can assist 
not only by supplying the natural cultural background, 
which is necessary, but by directing and teaching the 
technique of expression in the particular arts. Green- 
wich house in New York City was one of the pioneers 
in this. Remarkable work has been done in developing 
the artistic impulses among immigrant nationalities. 
Most settlements have made some sort of similar effort 
but the development has not been carried as far as it 
has with music. A possible explanation is the fact 
that free education in art has already become more 
firmly established through other agencies. Public 
schools and colleges give courses in art. I do not mean 
to say that art education in America is what it should 
be, but it has at least become established. It is the 
settlement's present task to supplement, to advise, and 
to encourage. 

9. In connection with dramatics, a great deal has 
been accomplished. Beginning with amateur theatricals 
the work has widened out until it has realized more 



M THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

far reaching possibilities. The Hull House Players in 
Chicago have won a notable name for themselves. In 
Henry Street, in New York, dramatics have drawn 
a clientele that a few years ago warranted the estab- 
lishment of the Neighborhood Theater on Grand 
Street. Here it has been possible to attempt to relate 
literature, the drama, and the graphic arts. The theater 
possesses very complete equipment in the way of work 
shops for the making of its own scenery, equipment 
and costumes. 

It is only recently that the power of the drama as 
a living force in daily life has been appreciated. Not 
only is it an educational force along intellectual and 
spiritual lines, but it offers first hand to the individual, 
a vision of the possibilities of self development and 
self equipment for the positive business of everyday 
existence. To get the force of this, one has to witness 
the awakening of a drab personality, stirred by the 
imaginative possibilities and the mock realities of the 
stage. Through pronouncing words of genius, which 
are put into one's mouth, one learns the attributes of 
genius and begins, unconsciously at first, to equip one- 
self for a fuller and more purposeful part in society. 
It is of great educational value to witness the acting 
of a good play, but to walk upon the stage, to speak 
to hushed audiences is to awake to a consciousness of 
power generally unsuspected within the self. When 
the settlement sponsors the drama, it should be with 
this view. Because the dramatic form is used, it does 
not mean that the settlement through it is trying to 
create professional actors, any more than, because 
parliamentary procedure is used in the clubs, it means 



IMMEDIATE DEMANDS 55 

that the settlement is trying to create professional repre- 
sentatives and senators. 

10. The encouragement of debates and public speak- 
ing is with a similar purpose. It is of the greatest 
value for creating self confidence with the individual 
and for giving him the simplest means of self expres- 
sion. Almost every settlement makes some attempt 
at holding open forums and encouraging the discussion 
of social questions. The open forum is a great agency 
for awakening people to a sense of their community 
of interest and for furnishing a direct agency both 
for the expression and execution of community desires. 
Once the settlement has made its place and won the 
trust of those who live crowded up to its doors, there 
is no limit to its usefulness. Intelligent organization 
and assistance are all that are needed to bring out local 
opinion. Where the settlement is alive to the possibili- 
ties of extension work, it will find that it is constantly 
called upon by the neighborhood. Confidence in the 
settlement is easily bred by fearless support of neighbor- 
hood needs, and confidence makes opinion vocal. 
Many of the civic improvements, which have been 
made in recent years, have been matured from small 
beginnings and brought to expression through the set- 
tlements. The University Settlement wielded great in- 
fluence in the Delancey Street improvement in New 
York at the time of the opening of the Williamsburgh 
Bridge. The neighborhood wanted it. The settlement 
helped to give expression to this sentiment. Indeed, 
when neighborhoods speak through settlements the 
voice is very nearly an imperative. 

11. In addition to local questions, the settlement 



56 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

serves as an agency for crystalizing opinion in regard 
to public policy. During the past decade and a half 
there has been a great deal of what has been termed 
remedial legislation. Latterly, perhaps in realization 
that it was the social rather than the political structure 
that was ailing, this movement has been termed social 
legislation. The forces of organized labor have been 
responsible for much of the pressure that has been 
brought to bear upon our legislators but many of the 
cold hard facts, certainly the best surveys and probably 
the most adequate knowledge has been supplied by 
workers in our settlements. There is no more valuable 
work that is done by the settlements than this of 
supplying accurate knowledge of living conditions in 
tenement neighborhoods. Where social legislation is 
necessary we are turning more and more to social 
workers for advice. It is impossible to conceive of 
any more first hand method of getting information 
to direct public action, than to turn to those leaders, 
who, while sharing the life of people whose horizon is 
beset with obstacles, are using their own trained intelli- 
gence to make better living conditions possible. It is 
to be regretted that much of the information, which 
is gathered together, is completely lost to the public 
because it is not put into proper form to make it avail- 
able. The "Survey" has given valuable assistance here 
through publishing the results of investigations in its 
columns. Settlements should make a greater use of 
this valuable publicity agency. 

12. There has recently developed in New York 
and other cities as an outgrowth of the settlement, 
another activity of which a word must be said in 



IMMEDIATE DEMANDS 57 

passing. It is the recreation and social center activity 
organized in the public schools. This development 
represents the enlarging of the settlement idea. The 
essential difference is that there is no one in residence. 
It is the people's social center with the emphasis on 
the recreation and the town meeting or open forum. 
Similar centers of public recreation are the municipal 
baths and gymnasiums and the town free libraries. 
Many municipalities are even going so far as to attempt 
to furnish "play directors" for the children in some of 
the public gardens. 

13. During the war there developed in the United 
States a movement which promises very far reaching 
results unless it is prostituted by individuals seeking 
personal preferment. The movement reached its 
maturest state in Cincinnati, Ohio, where the Social 
Unit plan was developed. In the fall of 1919 a definite 
attempt was made to turn the so-called Community 
Councils of National Defense into permanent Com- 
munity Councils organized for the purpose of advanc- 
ing neighborhood welfare. 

The movement bears a resemblance to the old Neigh- 
borhood Associations which were an outgrowth of 
settlement work and which did go a great way toward 
getting local opinion together. The Community Coun- 
cil, however, appears to be more general in its make-up, 
all individuals in the neighborhood being invited to 
take part in its meetings. The Councils seem to have 
sprung up in many cases outside of already organized 
agencies of opinion. In every case they certainly have 
the virtue of stimulating local thought. It is a plan 
which social settlements and social organizations in 



58 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

•  , 

general have wished well for but there are many 
difficulties to be overcome and much educational work 
to be done. In such work the settlements undoubtedly 
will take an important part. 

14. I have given as one of the principal demands, 
to which the settlement must respond the caption "finan- 
cial distress." More often than the individual it is 
the family that 'feels this distress acutely. When 
the family finds itself in dire straits the relief to be 
effective must be immediate. Though the settlement 
receives many such calls and must be prepared to act 
immediately, it is not the only agency that receives 
them. The church has always been guardian angel 
of the needy poor. 

\ 15. Within the last twenty years there has grown 
up another agency, represented by so-called "Organized 
Charity." This is composed in New York City of 
the Charity Organization Society, the Association for 
Improving the Condition of the Poor, and the United 
Hebrew Charities. Other cities support similar organ- 
izations. These great impersonal organized charities 
have their supporters who pay out their money and 
have the assurance that it is scientifically distributed. 
Undoubtedly a very necessary piece of work is done 
but the scientific administration is of course expensive. 
Acting as a clearing house for the great organized 
charities there is generally an organization such as the 
Social Service Exchange in New York. The mere 
keeping of reliable central records is a protection to 
the community against "being worked for charity." 
Reference to this clearing center is necessary if efficient 
neighborhood case work is to be done by the settlement. 



IMMEDIATE DEMANDS 59 

It is to be hoped that the impersonality of the great 
"organized" societies can be made up for by closer 
co-operation with the human touch of the social settle- 
ment and the lackadaisical method of working and 
keeping records, often a fault in the settlement, may be 
improved by contact with the system of the societies. 

16. By virtue of their character, the societies can 
only give the most immediate relief. It is an expense 
to "carry a case." As a result we have what are 
termed "closed cases," which means, in brief, that 
the relief proscribed has been administered and that 
the society has turned to other work. Settlements 
through the means of friendly visiting, are able to keep 
in touch with families, who have been helped and 
often are able to prevent recurrences of distress by 
timely assistance or advice before the trouble again 
becomes acute. With the settlement there should be 
no such thing as a closed case. 

17. Case work is, however, in reality mere emer- 
gency work. It must not be made an end in itself. 
There must always be the vision in the settlement 
looking toward removing the causes of distress. The 
problems that arise when such an attitude is taken 
will be discussed in their place. It is merely desired 
to comment here on the hard fact that in the constantly 
arising emergencies, the settlement is called on to act 
for immediate results. Hunger and disease do not 
await social readjustment to reap their victims, whom 
poverty and filth and ignorance have prepared for 
them. The settlement must minister to the hungry 
and sick. It must act as adviser and friend to needy 
individuals and families, helping them out of difficulties 



60 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

and tiding them over critical times, often giving em- 
ployment, sometimes making possible fresh air vaca- 
tions. Sometimes as in the winter of 1913-1914, the 
settlement is called upon to face the actual difficulties 
of general unemployment. The report of the Uni- 
versity Settlement of N. Y. for 1913 illustrates the 
lengths to which it may be necessary to go to relieve 
acute distress. It reads : 

"As this report goes to press an emergency, due to 
a combination of causes, has arisen which the settle- 
ment is trying to meet. The intense cold weather and 
the large number of unemployed men, have made it 
seem wise to give each night shelter to as many men 
as the floor space of our Assembly and Guild Halls 
can accommodate, . . . providing a simple breakfast 
of coffee and rolls at a nearby restaurant." 

Here is an activity which is nothing more than a 
makeshift. It was done because it had to be done and 
the settlement was on the ground and understood the 
conditions. The immediacy of the distress was great 
enough to cause the settlement to attack the problem 
from an angle entirely different from its regular course, 
which would have been to hunt jobs for the men and 
look into the causes of their unemployment. 

18. The settlement has gone far to meet the causes 
of distress due to health which are likely to be brought 
to its door. In fact one house, the Henry Street Set- 
tlement," has developed a visiting nurse service, which 
may be weighed favorably against all the other direct 
benefits of settlement work for the good that has 

"See "The House on Henry Street," by Lillian D. Wald. 
See also Reports. 



IMMEDIATE DEMANDS 61 

been accomplished. New York City has been districted 
and from the various centers nurses are sent out upon 
reports of need coming in through physicians, insur- 
ance companies, charities, families, or other sources. 
In the year 1920 the staff averaged 212 members, 
336,722 visits were made to 42,902 patients. The 
work is supported by gifts, endowment, and payments 
from the insurance companies, and from those receiv- 
ing treatment. The work has gone far indeed but 
it is capable of still further development. Municipali- 
ties, counties, and communities have taken up the 
idea. The district nurse is known all over the United 
States. 

19. Almost all settlements will make the attempt 
to have at least one resident with a nurse's training 
and to work through her in connection with the regular 
district nursing service. The resident nurse should 
have the health work of the settlement under her care. 
She should be responsible for the health education of 
the neighborhood. She should relate the settlement 
to the organized work of maternity centers, milk sta- 
tions, diet Kitchens, free clinics, and other health agen- 
cies. If the neighborhood is one where these are 
undeveloped, there will be all the more call for the 
resident nurse in the settlement, for it will be necessary 
to start out upon a constructive campaign to gain 
for the district the health agencies which it lacks. Such 
a campaign will require trained leadership. The resi- 
dent nurse will always have a wide field in health ex- 
tension work, in the detection and care of mental 
defectives, as well as the study of particular classes 
of health cases. At one time Union Settlement in 



62 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

New York supported a school for anaemic children 
on its roof. The settlement is strategically placed for 
dealing intelligently with some of the most perplexing 
health problems which are confronting society. 

20. There is no doubt but that there are many 
social agencies long in existence as well as those forces 
which have been set in motion by the war which are 
only beginning to realize the entree which the social 
settlement can give them into the very fields of en- 
deavor which they seek. There is little doubt but 
that the Day Nursery, palliative though it may be, 
operates with greater usefulness when balanced by 
the social service work of a nearby settlement. There 
is little doubt but that the settlement must call again 
and again upon the Day Nursery for vital assistance 
in its neighborhood. 

21. Another call which is regularly made upon the 
settlement organization is to help the individual and 
the family in cases arising from conduct. The simple 
friendships between the residents and their neighbors 
are of the greatest value here; for after all, friendship 
is one of the most helpful of human relationships. 
Where conduct goes far in the wrong direction it is 
sure to come sharply against the rigidity of the civil 
and the criminal law. The law, however, is not very 
generally understood by the uneducated man and the 
foreigner. Indeed its perplexities continually baffle 
the understanding of many of the most intelligent. 
A man of means can retain a lawyer to advise him. 
The poor man is often the victim of the shyster. Set- 
tlements either directly or in co-operation with Legal 
Aid Societies should be equipped when called upon 



IMMEDIATE DEMANDS 63 

to make the law intelligible to the poor man and to 
assure him that he gets a square deal. 

22. In this connection, settlements are continually 
called upon to co-operate with other organizations. 
Valuable assistance has been rendered to the Courts 
in making their probation work effective, and there 
has been mutual co-operation with the work of such 
organizations as the "Big Brothers," the. "Big Sisters," 
and "Juvenile Protective Societies." 7 There is much 
to be gained on both sides by such co-operation. The 
settlement has its entree into the neighborhood and its 
wide viewpoint to balance against a particular program 
and a special understanding. It is to be hoped that, 
as time goes on, organized social forces will become 
more and more closely knit and that co-operation will 
become more and more extensive as understanding 
increases. 



7 Especially see Bibliography for reports by Juvenile Pro- 
tective Association of Chicago. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE CLUB AND THE SUMMER CAMP IN 
SETTLEMENT WORK 

1. In meeting the recreational and educational de- 
mands that are made upon it, the policy of the average 
settlement is so bound up with the administration of 
its club system that it is well to inquire further into 
the latter before attempting to study the deeper social 
significance of the movement as a whole. As has been 
already pointed out, the club is the most typical unit 
of individuals with which the settlement deals. It 
differs from the class, which it often appears to resem- 
ble, by having a more closely knit existence. The 
members are bound together by particular ties such as 
friendship or a common interest in the purposes of 
the club. Generally a written constitution is the basis 
of organization. The membership is elective. By its 
members the club form is at first used to give expres- 
sion and stability to the requirements of everyday social 
intercourse. It soon becomes a regular source of 
recreational enjoyment and in time its educational 
potentialities are realized. 

2. Long experience has given to the settlement an 
understanding of the possibilities to be realized in club 
work as well as knowledge of the difficulties to be 
encountered so that the average house has, ready to 
be put into operation, what might be termed a regular 

64 



THE CLUB 65 

club program. When the settlement furnishes meeting 
rooms for the club and either invites or permits the 
latter to join its organization, it assumes a responsi- 
bility. For this reason a representative of the settle- 
ment, usually an older and more experienced person, 
generally meets with the club in the capacity of director. 
It is his business to see that the club gets the benefit 
of the advantages which the settlement is able to 
offer. 

3. The position of club director is exceedingly deli- 
cate and is one which calls for great tact and forebear- 
ance. Club work to be effective should be a natural 
expression of the members themselves. The director 
must exercise a nice balance. He can lead but he cannot 
push. He can point to errors, he can warn of mistakes. 
He should not, however, insist upon definite or specific 
action. The ideal director is hard to find. The aver- 
age beginner is so little appreciative of the necessity 
for regularity that he is apt to be undependable. It 
is very frequently the fault of the settlement that he 
isn't started right. He is often given charge of a 
club before he understands the nature of the task before 
him. Many times he is allowed to founder without 
support and without receiving an inkling of the exist- 
ence of the great mass of settlement experience with 
clubs, amid which he is working. Where he is properly 
supported and where he has imagination to grasp the 
possibilities the untried volunteer can bring a certain 
freshness into club leadership which is often missing 
in the work of the professional. 

4. One of the hardest tasks, which the settlement 
has, is to find a sufficient number of the right kind 



66 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

of club leaders. The house staff is not large enough 
to be depended upon. Indeed their energies will be 
freer for general work in the settlement if, so far as 
clubs are concerned, their activities are limited to 
general supervision and guidance. The actual leader- 
ship of the individual clubs may be handed over 
entirely to volunteers. This means that the responsi- 
bility for securing these volunteers must be placed upon 
capable shoulders. It is a very general fault, however, 
that this responsibility is never very definitely located. 
I know of one or two settlements that have volunteer 
committees charged with the task of "getting new 
friends interested" to give their personal service. The 
difficulties in the way are realized and the failures 
are easily excused. The problem is attacked piecemeal 
from the point of view of getting a leader for one 
little club or for one little settlement. The one leader 
may be procured but, for the same amount of effort 
something much more far reaching ought to be accom- 
plished. 

The problem should be appreciated and approached 
in its full magnitude. It is the problem of securing 
volunteers for social work. Settlement work and social 
work ought to be carried on ninety per cent by volun- 
teers. The professional worker is a necessary evil. 
He plays a vital part but it is only a part. The settle- 
ment idea is a method of living and unless the method 
becomes far better understood and more generally 
practiced than it has up to now, it will perish and all 
its promise will be dissipated. Volunteers will not be 
found for the settlement in any such numbers as they 
are needed, until all social agencies unite in a cam- 



THE CLUB 67 

paign to popularize the settlement idea and so make it 
comprehensible to the man in the street as a method 
of life quite within the range of practicability. 

A slight beginning has been made in the way of an 
attempt "to get the colleges interested." Students have 
been approached, and have been urged "to go into 
social work," much in the same way as they have been 
urged to go into scientific work, banking, or what not. 
It has not been made sufficiently apparent, however, 
that they can play a part in social work at the same 
time that they are pursuing their regular business or 
vocation. Discussion of how the settlement movement 
is to carry on may properly be left to the concluding 
chapter, it is necessary to comment here only upon the 
hard fact that, in order to carry on regular club work, 
there must be a constant supply of volunteer leaders 
ready and interested to give personal service. Inci- 
dentally I have heard many headworkers say, "We 
want busy men and women for our volunteers ; it doesn't 
pay to ask people to help who have time on their 
hands." 

5. The busy man or woman has a better sense of 
responsibility and is better equipped to win the respect 
of the club members than one who has no sense of the 
value of time nor of the necessity for holding to 
obligations. In club leadership it is the value of 
example that counts. The members of the club will 
do what they observe the person to do, whom they 
respect the most. If that person is the club director 
he will not have to tell them anything. 

Let me cite an example. A certain group of boys 
averaging about fifteen or sixteen years got the repu- 



68 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

tation of being "the toughest bunch on the block." 
They used to stand around drug stores and side doors 
of saloons smoking very cheap cigarettes and cat-calling 
at the girls who passed by. They had a scorn for the 
conventional type of hats and affected big caps pulled 
over their ears at curious angles. They had a peculiar 
way of spitting out of the corners of their mouths. 
They punctuated their sentences with words like Jesus 
and damn and hell, and others not so nice in their 
original meaning. They spent their evenings provoking 
trouble and hunting for excitement. One night they 
visited the neighborhood dance in progress at a settle- 
ment (Admission 5 cents). Two of them were kicked 
out for refusing to take off their caps, another was 
evicted for a rough house that ended in breaking a 
chair, a fourth was put out for using profane language. 
Three remained. They were engaged in conversation 
by a very large man whom they later learned had been 
a famous football player at Princeton. They were 
interested in the gymnasium equipment. The idea 
came to them that basketball could be played by boys 
who didn't go to high school. They asked if they could 
play. They were told that if they formed a club and 
had a director that they could play. They asked the 
big man to be their director and said that they would 
get the rest of their "bunch." But the rest of the 
bunch resentful over having been put out, refused to 
come in. They asked the big man if he would come 
and talk to the others. He did. He spent an evening 
with them. Where they went he went also, but they 
noticed that he didn't cat-call after girls and that he 
didn't wear a cap. 



THE CLUB 69 

6. They came to the settlement house again and 
asked him to spend another evening with them. The 
big man said he didn't much enjoy dancing on cellar 
doors and proposed that they should go to a show. 
Two of them hadn't any money and asked him to 
wait while they "swiped a nickel off the soda and candy 
man at the corner." He said he'd lend them the money. 
They said that would be all right that "they'd swipe 
it later." They noticed that he took off his hat when 
he went into the movie house. They asked if they 
couldn't form a club and play basketball. He helped 
them start their club. They found they couldn't go 
on the gymnasium floor without rubber soled shoes. 
They said they guessed the house wasn't for them but 
only for "swells." The big man suggested that they 
earn some money and buy the shoes. Three of them 
did. One swapped his regular shoes for tennis shoes. 
Another complained that he had to give all his money 
to his mother. The others laughed; the big man 
didn't. Next week he had a pair of shoes to lend. 

7. Then they discovered that everyone else paid 
dues to their club and that the club paid five dollars 
a year to the house for the use of the gymnasium. 
There was a cry of protest but the big man said he'd 
trust them until they earned it. He said that he had 
had to borrow money himself to go through college 
and that he'd just finished paying it back. They re- 
marked that he must have wanted to go awfully bad. He 
asked how many of them were going to high school. 
Nobody answered. Then one of the boys asked what's 
the use. The big man said that if he didn't know him- 
self he guessed there wasn't any use. As time went on 



TO THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

the boys asked questions. Half of the time they received 
no direct reply. They learned to observe as well as 
to inquire. They began to have an understanding of 
the value of some of the things that they had laughed 
at. They left off sneering and cat-calling. 

8. They were ordinary boys, typical of hundreds 
who are formed into clubs and of a type with stuff 
in them worth developing. It took simply contact 
with something a little better than street corner 
standards to win their devotion. It must not be as- 
sumed, however, that club work is something that runs 
easily and develops all by itself without a struggle. 
It is a succession of problems one after the other. 
Very young children require a different sort of handling 
from the club of boys of whom I have given an 
account. For a time the boys and girls work is better 
separated. Then, as the age of adolescence approaches, 
the problem is to get them together again in a natural 
way. Aside from the regular program of club work, 
club "affairs" are periodically arranged for. At these 
the members of the club giving the "affair" are the 
responsible hosts. The guests are members of other 
clubs or outsiders who have no connection with the 
house; they are both girls and boys. It is surprising 
how zealously standards are guarded at these affairs. 
Each club is desirous of making its affair the best and 
"the finest thing that has been done." 

9. The great criticism of the club system is that 
it leads nowhere. The clubs are carried to a certain 
point of development only to disband, or to loose inter- 
est in the house, or perhaps to change character com- 
pletely as the members grow maturer. The club pro- 



THE CLUB 71 



gram seems apparently to have no end which it has been 
found possible to achieve. If by that is meant a definite 
and finite end then the answer is that it has none. 
When, however, one stops to consider the great num- 
ber of individuals for whom the club has been the 
means to a larger understanding of life as well as 
a preparation for life, it is no mean achievement. The 
aim of club work should not be confused with the aim 
of settlement work. The spirit of the latter should 
dominate the former but individual clubs should not 
be expected to flower into small imitations of the 
millenium. 

10. The organization which has grown up side by 
side with the settlement, of which the Boys' Club of 
New York on Avenue A is typical, exists solely for the 
purpose of work with boys. There is less reason 
for confusion as to its aims. This type of self-con- 
tained Boys' Club has amply justified its existence. 
There is no excuse for badly done club work. The 
study of the boy, his development, his needs, and his 
training is the first and foremost object of the leaders 
as well as of all of the workers in the movement. 
There is no chance that planning a program for the 
boys will be relegated to a secondary place. The 
broader scope and purpose of the settlement require 
that first thought be given to broad social considera- 
tions which often necessitate the assignment of the 
administration of the boys' and girls' departments to 
subordinates. This should not mean that the work is 
not just as well done. In practice, however, it means 
that leadership is more temporary and that the settle- 
ments are constantly resorting to makeshifts and com- 



72 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

plaining that they never seem to be able to find just 
the right sort of man or woman to take over the 
responsibility of the boys' or the girls' department. 

It is my belief that settlements have a great deal to 
learn from the more specialized work of the organized 
Boys' Clubs. This is particularly true of New York 
City, where, but for one or two exceptions, this sort 
of work is far behind what has been done in some 
of the lesser cities. There is in existence an Inter- 
national Federation of Boys Clubs, membership in 
which should be extremely helpful to the boys depart- 
ments of the settlements. There is also a national 
organization of girls clubs. The possibilities for co- 
operative helpfulness in both of these movements are 
unbounded. 

11. Space does not permit a profound discussion of 
the interesting details of what has come to be known 
as boys' work and girls' work. It is impossible, how- 
ever, to pass on without a mention of the organization 
known as the Boy Scouts of America. There is also 
a counterpart among the girls. At the present time, 
the movement seems to be somewhat top heavy. This 
is due probably to its semi-military form. It is built 
from the top down, each unit deriving its authority 
for existence from the unit immediately above. Quite 
a large paper organization is therefore required to sup- 
port a single troop in the field. Undoubtedly the move- 
ment will grow to fit the framework. Occasionally, 
however, one is brought face to face with the feeling 
of healthy scorn with which some of those in the field 
regard their paper officials. 

The most significant development that has taken 



THE SUMMER CAMP 73 

place recently has been the adoption by settlements of 
the Boy Scout program as their method in boys' work. 
Where this has been done, so far as has come to my 
knowledge, it has met with unqualified success. To 
city boys, the out of door part of the program has been 
of more than especial value; it has been a revelation. 
What may be ultimately accomplished appears to be 
limited only by the leadership that will be available. 
Notwithstanding their more definitely mapped pro- 
gram, it has been no easier to find scoutmasters than 
directors of boys' clubs. The Scout organization itself 
has so far disclaimed the responsibility for providing 
leaders. It has offered, however, to train any number 
of leaders in scouting as soon as they were provided 
by the settlements and other organizations standing 
sponsor for troops, and it has offered to exercise super- 
vision over both leader and troop. Despite this willing- 
ness there has not been shown, especially by the minor 
officials of the movement, an appreciation of the fact 
that scouting is a specialized form of boys' work and as 
such merely a phase of social work. The scouts have 
not been conscious of their relationship to the social 
movement as a whole nor have they been awake either 
to the need or to the part they should play in a con- 
certed and continuous campaign for volunteers for 
social work. 

THE SUMMER CAMP 

12. Before closing there is a certain branch of 
settlement work which has been very definitely organ- 
ized that should properly be discussed in this chapter. 



74 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

While it cannot be said that the summer camp is an 
integral part of the house proper it has certainly come 
to be regarded as a very necessary adjunct. Settle- 
ment work is hardly looked upon as complete unless 
it can offer fresh air relief in necessitous cases. Super- 
ficially there is no reason why the camp should be 
under the same administration as the city house; fun- 
damentally and in practice, however, there are many 
advantages. 

In the first place any program for recreation in 
the summer months is barren unless it includes an 
attempt to get out into the air and into the country. 
In the second place summer weather is too hot for 
carrying on much of the indoor club work which is 
the rule in winter. In the third place the children and 
younger people are out of school and thrown upon the 
streets in the hot weather. Finally it is much easier 
to raise money for fresh air vacations in the country 
than for perhaps any of the many other activities for 
which the settlement is sponsor. It is thus often pos- 
sible to transport a portion of the house staff to camp 
and to carry on there certain of the regular activities 
under a modified form. 

13. At the camp, however, the home, the family, 
and the neighborhood are all removed from the round 
of everyday life. Those who go to the camp are there- 
fore taken outside of their natural environment. One 
may think of them as individualities literally turned 
loose. It is of very distinct value to each of them to 
experience this feeling of complete freedom, of the 
throwing off of chains as it were; but it will be bal- 
anced on the other hand by a closer association with 



THE SUMMER CAMP 75 

certain positive and established forces than prevailed 
in the settlement. Contact with the residents will be 
more continuous than was possible in the city. There 
is no doubt but that some of the most intensive work 
so far as girls and boys are concerned, is best accom- 
plished at the summer camp. 

As a rule the boys' work is conducted separately 
from the girls'. There are camps, however, where a 
complete community is the basis of organization. At 
Northover Camp, at Bound Brook, N. J., there is a 
division for girls, for boys, for younger girls, for 
younger boys, and also for older people, but there 
are many things that daily bring the whole community 
together. Classified work is possible but there is in 
addition the advantage of an inter-related social group. 
Young people are thrown naturally together without 
interference from some of the conventional barriers 
which so often are a source of misconception and mis- 
interpretation. It becomes possible for those of the 
opposite sexes to meet on the basis of friendship out- 
side of a dance hall without the imputation that they 
are "keeping company." 

The big common dining room is a valuable social 
center. It is not for the purpose of keeping order that 
a resident is placed at each table, but to act as host, 
to keep things running smoothly, and to make those, 
who are not used to big dining rooms, feel at home. 
I remember distinctly the case of a city school teacher, 
who, after spending a two weeks' vacation at such a 
camp, went to the headworker to say, "Do you know? 
I'm a plain man, I've worked my own way, I've given 
myself my education. I've been able to get a great 



76 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

many things for myself, but there's something I'd like 
to tell you, I've never had the chance before to eat 
with ladies and gentlemen at the same table, and it's 
meant a great deal to me, though it's very hard for 
me to explain it to you." 

14. Camp life has an extraordinary value because 
it is an exceedingly democratic life. It is possible for 
people, whose usual interests and experiences have 
been diametrically opposite, to find a common interest 
in the more primitive pleasures and duties of life in 
camp. Out on a hike with the boys social differences 
are non-existent. Life appears broader and more 
human. Here is an inkling, a vision, of the possibili- 
ties that lie in the settlement idea. To share life with 
others, to find joys, simple though they may be, that 
can be shared with an ever widening circle, is to dis- 
cover that men have many things in common. After 
all, it is shared experience that makes human life sweet 
just as much as it is human inter-dependence that 
maintains the stability of society. At the summer 
camp there is the opportunity to demonstrate the sim- 
plicity of both of these truths in terms that are easily 
comprehensible. The camp community is in many 
senses a reproduction of primitive society where social 
truths are reduced to such simple forms as to be 
inescapable. The practical and immediate values of 
the camp are apparent to all; this subtler significance 
should not be lost sight of. 



CHAPTER VII 

REAL OR PERMANENT BENEFITS 

1. We come now to a consideration of the real 
or permanent benefits of settlement activity. I do 
not use the word real to imply in any sense that it is 
of no real benefit to help the poor man. It is not real 
in that it is a makeshift. The ideal settlement looks 
beyond the struggling and oppressed proletariat. It 
idealizes democracy. It is convinced not only of the 
ultimate necessity but of the possibility of that democ- 
racy. Again, to use Miss Addams' words : "English 
and American Settlements unite in a desire to minimize 
their activities as rapidly as other agencies will carry 
them on. -.. . . A settlement must always hold its 
activities in the hollow of its hand, ready and glad to 
throw them away. It must daily live to die, and that 
settlement may indeed be proud which is able to say, 
'This neighborhood no longer needs that kind of help, 
because its own civic and moral energy is aroused.' 

Jacob A. Riis shared this view. He even went so 
far as to say that the settlement should gradually drop 
out of existence, because the institutionalizing of social 
work marked only a transitional phase of our develop- 
ment. But Mr. Riis was an optimist ; he believed that 
a problem once solved, was solved forever. 

2. Were it not for the fact that the individual 

77 



78 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

comes into society an infant, unclothed and uneducated, 
Mr. Riis' optimism might be justified, and society 
would be spared the perennial task of teaching "the 
A. B. C.'s of how to get along" to its rising genera- 
tion. Society is eternal. It lives forever. The in- 
dividual, however, is continually dying to have his 
place in the social organism taken by the newcomer. 
The greatest problem in fact, that confronts society, 
is to keep the newcomer up to the standard. The 
human individual is the heir of the ages, but this same 
human unit can receive his heritage only through educa- 
tion. It is here that our present system of education 
is lacking. The individual is taught some smattering 
of reading and writing, a little mathematics and, 
perhaps, a language and then he is left to guess 
what the heritage of the ages may be. Not an 
inkling of his relation to the whole of society is given 
him. 

3. The medieval church preached a doctrine which 
diverted the individual from channels of thought which 
might lead him to relate himself to society as a whole. 
The early church taught the individual that the salva- 
tion of his individual soul was an end in itself, and 
since there seemed very little hope of such salvation 
here on earth, the church held out the attraction of a 
life in another world. Today we seem only at the 
beginning of a kind of education which attempts to 
relate the individual to society and which is beginning 
to teach that, whatever may be the life in the hereafter, 
the individual here in this world must first and always 
seek the social good. We have even today coined a 
phrase "Social Evangelism," which is significantly 



REAL OR PERMANENT BENEFITS 79 

descriptive of the part which the new religion is to 
play in the coming world of social movement. 

4. The kind of education that is to give the indi- 
vidual an understanding of his relation to the whole, 
is not a philosophy which can be enunciated once and 
then allowed to shift for itself. The newcomers in 
society must be taught their "heritage of the ages." 
It is my belief that the settlement has a very real part 
to play in this new education. When I consider the 
strategic position which the settlement occupies I am 
convinced that it has only begun to come into its 
own. It may be able to abandon some of the functions 
which it has been forced to take up as palliatives, but 
the real vital forces moving toward social understanding 
and social education will for a long while require just 
such a human organization as a central means of ap- 
proach to better understanding between the elements 
of society. 

5. In a general classification, society as it exists 
today may be divided into four groups. (1) There 
is first that large group which has enjoyed all of the 
advantages which money and position can procure, 
including the advantage of "higher education," but 
which is composed of individuals entirely complacent 
and unquestioning, who are not sensitive of any social 
responsibility, and who naturally wish to enjoy to 
the full those advantages to which they have fallen 
heir. (2) Beneath this group is one still larger, com- 
posed of under-privileged individuals who look up to 
those, whose lot it has been to have more than they, 
and are humbly grateful for such bounties as they may 
win for favor or hire. There are many of these 



80 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

individuals who wish to climb higher, in order that 
they may "enjoy more things," but they none of them 
have much of a conception of the position of their class 
in society nor would they a9 individuals generally care, 
provided that each might make his own individual lot 
happier. (3) The next group, however, though also 
composed of under-privileged persons, is made up of 
dynamic individuals, all of whom are conscious of 
the existence of social forces and social relations; 
indeed, the group itself might be said to be class con- 
scious. The immediate desires of the individuals are 
varied. At one extreme are those who, violently 
indignant at the poverty and degradation in which 
the majority of men live, aim to tear down existing 
institutions. At the other extreme are those who are 
anxious to build up and to educate the great mass 
of their fellows so that "society as a whole" may be 
made better and fairer. (4) Finally there is a fourth 
group, smaller, perhaps, in number than any of the 
others. It is made up of individuals who are in a 
position to enjoy those privileges which come with 
the advantages of education, of travel and of a com- 
manding position in society. The spirit of this group, 
however, differs from the spirit shown by the one 
first mentioned. The individuals are alive to a concep- 
tion of society which recognizes that individual men 
and groups of men alike bear a fundamental relation 
to society as a whole. The privileged individuals of 
this group are conscious of their social responsibility. 
In order to make this grouping clear I have drawn 
a diagram in which I have represented society in general 
as the area within the circumference of a circle. 



REAL OR PERMANENT BENEFITS 81 

Through this area I have drawn two lines which repre- 
sent natural lines of division. 8 



*5 vV^ 

** / .^lucatiot) 

understanding 

of social 

responsibilities* 

aijd relatiorpfytps 

the; line ; or 

A. MATERIAL, 



/without material r\ 

\ advantages pert *" 
viiib an awakr 

ened ^..^ep^ tU 

of Individual */ 
v and/ group 



%/ 






a 



.rantage** 
. of 

education \>0» 

consciousness 
of - social 
responsibilities 
and rdatiorjsljips 



PIVlSiON 

\I7itbout material 
" advantages* 
and education 
Unconscious of 



social relation/* 
.ships and or/* x 
biA ov^> Zf * 
part foygfifr 



The Social Quadrant 

6. The horizontal line represents the division be- 
tween the privileged and the under-privileged; those 
who have enjoyed advantages and those who have 

* In no sense does the accompanying diagram represent the 
numerical size of the principal groups which I have denoted 
nor do the dividing lines draw hard and fast distinctions. 
The social quadrant has been invented because it seems to 
me to be an easy way to denote tendencies and their cross- 
relations. 



82 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

not; the fortunate and the less fortunate; or, as so 
many name it, the division between the upper and the 
lower classes. I have called this dividing line the 
Line of Advantages or Privileges. It may serve to 
denote the material distinctions which exist between 
men. 

7. In addition to this, however, men are divided 
according to their understanding of society. I have 
drawn a vertical line on the diagram to mark this 
division. It denotes a spiritual distinction. On the 
one side, there are those who are moved by a social 
conscience and a sense of social responsibility to their 
fellow men ; on the other those who are principally influ- 
enced by the motive of self preservation and self de- 
velopment. On the one side, are those who are alive to 
social problems, on the other those who are apathetic. 
The division between the left and right may be said 
to mark the opposition of liberal to reactionary thought. 

8. There has recently been so much misunderstand- 
ing of what is meant by the terms "social conscience" 
and "social responsibility," that I want to recite an 
incident from my own experience which amusingly 
typifies the tendency of an average educated woman 
of the upper right to misunderstand these terms. It 
was at an afternoon tea, I think. A lady known to be 
"interested in charities" was asked by an enthusiastic 
young girl if she had read the latest book. "It has 
such an illuminating title too, 'Your Part in Poverty.' 
The lady had not read it. In fact she drew herself up, 
with what was almost a shrug of the shoulders, until 
her pearl earrings shook violently. This was what 
she said : "Your Part in Poverty, oh, indeed, what 



REAL OR PERMANENT BENEFITS 83 

have I to do with poverty?" and she turned away. 
This, however, is no isolated case. There are thou- 
sands of individuals who go through life with little 
or no realization that what they do or do not do has 
an effect upon any except themselves. 

I once heard a young hostess, renowned for her 
charming entertainments, say that she "thanked heaven 
her father had earned his money honestly or else she 
would have a terrible conscience." It is difficult, indeed, 
to keep fresh in one's memory the fact that oneself 
and one's possessions are alike part of this world and 
exist only as a part of the whole. The possession of 
wealth, even though it represents capital accumulated 
according to the rules of the game, does not absolve 
the possessor from responsibility to society for the 
administration of the principal and the expenditure of 
the interest. The woman, who made her conscience 
easy because she knew her father had been honest 
and because she also thought that he had been fair, 
had no realization whatsoever of her own social entity. 
If she lived on income she was responsible first for 
the fair administration of the business or industries 
on whose earnings she lived. If these derived excessive 
earnings from sweated labor or labor hired for a bar- 
gain price less than a reasonable standard of living 
required, that woman was as surely living by the ex- 
ploitation of her fellow men as though it were her 
own deliberate action, and this entirely aside from 
any consideration of how or when her original interest 
in the business had been acquired. I do not mean to 
imply that it is wrong to live upon the earnings of 
accumulated capital but I do mean to imply that it is 



84 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

very wrong to live in ignorance of the relation one's 
personal income bears to the whole of the social 
organism. 

9. It is right here that the settlement fills a per- 
manent social need. It affords a meeting ground where 
those who have no consciousness of social responsibility 
may come to know individuals who have been less 
fortunate than they, and to understand some of the 
hardships which must be undergone and the problems 
faced by men and women who depend solely upon their 
daily wage for livelihood. There are few who fail 
to recognize an injustice, when it is revealed thus 
disinterestedly through the simple medium of the 
friendships which are made possible by residence at 
a settlement. A few days of open-hearted living in 
a tenement neighborhood is a wonderful tonic for 
the well-to-do person with a care-free conscience. 

Let me give a concrete example. A young man of 
considerable wealth once filled his automobile with 
laughing young people who wanted "to go slumming." 
They were moved solely by the curiosity to see what 
it was like; they particularly wanted to see Chinatown 
because they thought it would be queer and different 
and had read that it might be just a little bit dangerous 
to go there in a luxurious automobile. The young 
man wanted to be obliging. During the course of 
the trip they passed a settlement and someone remarked 
that she had a friend living there. So they all piled 
out in evening clothes and great wraps. A dance was 
in progress. At first the party danced among them- 
selves but before long the friend, who was a resident, 
paired them off with some of the neighborhood people. 



REAL OR PERMANENT BENEFITS 85 

The host of the automobile danced with a young girl 
who worked in a button factory and then with a 
stenographer who was earning twelve dollars a week. 
Then he talked with the residents, expressed an interest 
in the girls and surprise that they could dress so well 
on so little money and asked what kind of homes 
they came from. To his astonishment he learned 
that the girls came from the same block where he 
owned some houses. This awakened an interest be- 
cause he had always imagined that the very lowest 
sort of people were his tenants. 

Further investigation taught the young man that 
just such young girls lived in his own houses. He 
found the parents, for the most part, poor working 
people with large families. The mothers were dowdy 
and fat but with a certain amount of character in their 
faces which reminded him of Rembrandt's etchings. 
The fathers were dirty and appeared in the evening 
fagged out and listless, generally complaining of the 
cramped quarters and sometimes irritable. He found 
that both parents usually put all their hopes into their 
children, sometimes with a feeling that the young 
people were unappreciated by their employers, some- 
times to the point of actually bragging of a boy at 
college or a son who had "become a doctor." 

10. There is nothing unusual in the story of this 
chance visit to a settlement. I do not say that a human 
interest in his tenants might not have been awakened 
in this young landlord by another means, but I do 
say that the settlement furnished him immediately with 
something of which he had not suspected the need, 
namely, a human understanding and a natural social 



86 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

relation with the actual people to whom he was econom- 
ically related. I know that the social settlement has 
a wonderful power to open the eyes of those who do 
not know what it is to have a social conscience. 

11. On the other hand there are many for whom 
the social settlement holds out an attractive outlet for 
their activities and seems to satisfy a very keenly felt 
want. I refer to those people who have enjoyed 
unusual privileges of education and environment and 
who are conscious of their social responsibility. There 
are many young men, and women too, who have had 
the advantages of university training and residence, 
who have been reared in the atmosphere of liberal- 
mindedness and who have been stimulated by contact 
with forwarded-looking teachers. Such young people 
graduate from the colleges and go out into the world 
with deep seated and burning ideals. They are imme- 
diately brought into contact with actual conditions the 
historical significance of which they have studied. 
These young people are, perhaps, impatient with the 
masters whom they find administering judgments 
socially and industrially in the way that such judgments 
have been administered for years before. But the 
young people are told that they must wait, that they 
must "learn the way of the world." They find them- 
selves impotent and their ideals a loadstone abom" 
their necks. There are plenty who drop the loadstone 
and conform. 

But there are those who do not. There are many 
who demand an "outlet for their active faculties" and 
who insist on playing not only a part but a useful 
part in society. The settlement offers to those a place 



REAL OR PERMANENT BENEFITS 87 

of residence and a social atmosphere, which offers a 
ready means of approach to many different spheres 
of life. It offers, as a young banker, who had gone 
to live in a settlement, once told me, a place where he 
could "meet a few fellows who had never heard of 
J. P. Morgan and who weren't trying to dress like 
King Edward." 

12. The settlement, however, offers more than an 
insight into the many ways in which the "other fellow 
lives." It offers an opportunity to put life to the 
test. I think that Miss MacColl of Christodora House 
has given especial expression to this. She was con- 
vinced that her education had been given to her for 
a more fundamental purpose than as a set of rules 
for parlor behavior. She believed that, if education 
and Christianity were meant for anything at all, they 
were meant to be used in the contacts of everyday 
life and social intercourse. The social settlement does 
offer the chance to live one's life and put fundamental 
things into practice. Life in a tenement district is 
reduced to essentials. Education and character become 
not ornaments but limbs. Constantly, opportunities 
are presented which demand participation in the social 
movement and which call for the assumption of social 
responsibilities. One lives in a consciousness of the 
mutual interdependence of the different parts of the 
social structure. 

13. The settlement is the best agency yet devised 
for the improvement of the social structure because it 
is the most human. It does not have to wait for any 
automatic breakdown of capitalism nor for any general 
strike. [While its aim is social it is a movement of 



88 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

individuals. It is the 6nly method yet devised which 
takes into consideration both ends of society. 

14. Life in a tenement neighborhood brings one 
directly into contact with a great mass of men who 
have had barely the first rudiments of what is called 
"the advantages of education and good breeding" but 
who are still sensitive to the existence of the phe- 
nomenon which we term "society." These men come 
from the lower left social group. Generally, when the 
man with little education awakens to the fact that his 
own relation to society is controlled by forces bearing 
a definite relation to the parts which other men and 
groups of men play, he first becomes obsessed by the 
realization of the very undesirable position which he 
himself occupies. The only hope, which such a man 
can see, lies in his combination with other men in 
similar circumstances against men who are apparently 
living in the enjoyment of a more favorable social 
position. We have here the fundamental concept of 
the "class war"; the combination of one class of men 
against another. One will find factions among this 
group, all agreeing that, first and foremost, all hope 
for social betterment for the great masses of men rests 
in the possibility of victory over the property holding 
group. The points of difference between the various 
schools of reform ; socialist, syndicalist, anarchist, and 
bolshevist alike, lie only in the means advocated for 
prosecuting the struggle. 

15. Besides the radical groups, whose theories carry 
them to the point of preaching revolution, there are 
more conservative agencies of reform. There are the 
state socialists, who advocate the gradual assumption 



REAL OR PERMANENT BENEFITS 89 

by the state of the industries of greatest ecftnomic im- 
portance. There are also the guild socialists who 
emphasize the possibility of controlling industries from 
within by a sort of local government within each 
trade. The conception of the soviet is an attempt to 
apply local self government through the agency of 
industrial organization. In it the trades are represented 
but the unit is the locality. 

16. The rise of the modern woman and the liberal 
reforms brought about by her demand for political 
as well as social and economic rights are significant of 
changing conditions. The growth of the movement 
has paralleled the rise to power of organized labor 
and has in a sense been related to it. Both movements 
have arisen through dissatisfaction with economic con- 
ditions. Both have been a combination within a class 
to procure more advantages and better living conditions. 
The labor movement, however, has had the misfortune 
to be composed almost entirely of persons whose posi- 
tion in society lies below the Line of Advantages. It 
has had to produce its own champions. It has suffered 
for leadership. The men, who compose it, have in 
general lacked a knowledge of any other social group 
than their own. Their horizon has with few exceptions 
been limited to making life more endurable. 

17. The settlement offers to men of this type a 
chance for broadening their visions. By contact with 
leaders from the upper left social group, their con- 
sciousness, which is too often merely narrow "class 
consciousness" is awakened to a realization of the 
needs of society as a whole. I think that there is no 
greater service which the settlement can render than 



90 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

this of ministering to the needs of the common man, 
who has risen to the point of intellectual questioning 
and revolt, basing his decision upon his own experience 
without an understanding of the problem of the whole. 
The social settlement can discover to him the existence 
of individuals who, though they come from another 
social group and have enjoyed privileges which have 
been denied to him, yet are one with him in spirit and 
who long for social justice. An understanding of 
this situation opens to the common man a concept of 
society and the social struggle as a fight, not between 
those who have and those who have not, but as a 
struggle for social justice between those who realize 
that the good of the social whole is the end sought, 
as opposed to those who are absolutely blind to all 
social interpretations. This is the ultimate battle of 
understanding with unreasoning personal greed. It is 
a spiritual battle, not a class war. In a sense it is the 
same battle which has been fought ever since the apos- 
tles went out preaching Christianity. We are only just 
beginning, however, to awake to the existence of social 
forces and to realize the importance of social as opposed 
to individual perfectibility. 

Viewed in this light, the battle is to awaken the 
dormant side of society to a social consciousness. I 
have endeavored to emphasize the very real opportunity 
which the settlement has for service as interpreter of 
the new enlightenment. This opportunity, however, 
is narrow indeed, if only the immediate contacts of 
the settlement are considered. The settlement must 
extend its aid to individuals and groups which may 
become valuable forces in the social awakening. The 



REAL OR PERMANENT BENEFITS 91 

settlement has, as I have said, done a great deal in 
this direction but I am convinced that, particularly 
here in America, we have not begun to realize what 
an active positive stimulus the settlement is capable of 
wielding. 

18. The apathy and hopelessness of the mass of 
men must be overcome if society is to continue to 
grow. We have reached a limit today where further 
development at the top can count for little, unless it 
is to reach down, permeate the whole social body, and 
fertilize the barren lives, which the unrealized promise 
of modern science has left without a hope. The 
ordinary man must be stimulated to an understanding 
of his social value and filled with a conviction that 
such a thing as social justice is possible here in this 
world. 

From where is this stimulus to come? I do not 
assume to pose as a prophet, but it is my conviction 
that it is to be a mass movement. I believe, indeed, 
that the movement is already well advanced. It is 
the new enlightenment; an awakening to a conscious- 
ness of social forces and of social needs. The greatest 
part in this movement is to be played by the forces 
of the lower left group. It is the ordinary man, 
awakened to his new conception of playing a social 
part, who will be able to rouse the apathetic and hope- 
less materialists of the lower right. In this under- 
taking there is going to be a great and distinct call 
for a new type of education. Our American settle- 
ments have too long neglected the opportunity to come 
to the assistance of the organized forces already mov- 
ing in this direction. In America the settlement has 



92 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

done far less than it has in England to bring together 
those two vital forces which are useless, one without 
the other, namely, Education and the Labor Move- 
ment.. 



CHAPTER VIII 

SETTLEMENT ADMINISTRATION AND SUPPORT 

1. Having reached the conclusion that the settle- 
ment plays not only the transitory role of helping the 
less fortunate members of the community by direct aid 
but also occupies a strategic position in the scheme of 
society where it has the opportunity to be permanently 
useful, it is a point of necessity to inquire into the 
artificial relation of the settlement to the community. 
No organization can exist without a sound fiscal basis. 
The question, therefore, which is now before us, is 
to discover how society maintains the settlement. 

2. At present, the settlement has risen very little 
above absolute dependence upon private philanthropic 
gifts. Most of these are in the form of annual or 
occasional doles. Little progress has been made in 
the direction that many of our great universities have 
pursued, that of building up great endowments for 
their maintenance in perpetuity. In fact settlement 
workers themselves have been by no means united as 
to the wisdom of attempting to follow the endowment 
method of finance. The peculiar urgency of most of 
the calls made upon the settlement precludes the hoard- 
ing of funds for a doubtful future use and demands 
the utilization of every means possible to make life 
as it exists today better and cleaner, It has not been 

93 



94 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

a difficult matter to enlist private individuals to give 
funds to be applied to the many immediate needs of 
the average neighborhood where a settlement may be 
located. When contributions are applied to the endow- 
ment fund, it means that the interest instead of the 
principal of the gift is made available for use. 

3. Settlements have been growing, however. The 
mere maintenance of the physical plant and the pay- 
ment of the salaries of the necessary professional 
workers have come to require an annual expenditure 
which taxes the limitations of individual giving. In 
addition to the maintenance of a standard the settle- 
ment is, as we have already pointed out, constantly 
called upon to take up new things and to exert itself 
also from time to time to fill special needs. In the 
ideal, of course, society should provide for the needs 
of its members as they arise. But these needs, and 
the unfortunate circumstances which demand the settle- 
ment's aid arise because society falls short of the 
ideal. I agree at the outset that the settlement is but 
a makeshift in so far as it ministers to these imme- 
diate needs, but makeshift though it may be, it is 
the best that we have and certainly the most human. 
It is one that enlists the sympathies of the neighbor- 
hood after it has come to understand that the workers 
at the settlement are open minded as well as open 
handed. 

4. The neighborhood too is generally very ready 
to come open handedly to the aid of the settlement. 
I have met men who contend that the entire financial 
support of the settlement should come out of the neigh- 
borhood which it serves. There is at least one house, 



ADMINISTRATION AND SUPPORT 95 

the School Settlement, in Brooklyn, N. Y., where such 
a policy has been put into practice. In 1920-21, out 
of a budget of about seven thousand dollars, fifty per 
cent was raised by the house council. I know of several 
cases where sums equally large have been contributed 
by the neighborhood. Where the budget of the house 
is small the neighborhood is capable of contributing 
an appreciable percentage of the total. Where the 
budget of the house is large, the mistake is often 
made of disregarding the potential contribution of the 
neighborhood altogether or attaching so little impor- 
tance to it that no effort is made to enlist its assistance. 
The University Settlement of New York is, perhaps, 
the most important settlement which counts upon its 
neighbors for any appreciable amount of support, and 
even here the greater amount still comes from "uptown 
subscribers." 

5. As against the theory that the neighborhood 
should undertake the entire support of the settlement, 
I want to register a decided negative. The very fact 
that a neighborhood needs a settlement implies a con- 
dition where there are many who suffer and who are 
in need. It is not their immediate neighbors but society 
as a whole that is responsible for the incapacity of 
these to win a position of economic self-dependence. 
It is the obligation of society as a whole to help them 
into a position of self respect and self maintenance. 
There are three directions from which the necessary 
financial support may come: 1, the state or munici- 
pality; 2, industry; or 3, individual philanthropy. 

6. It is true that the municipality has the resources; 
but are they applicable? The settlement has stood as 



96 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

the pioneer in the social movement ; it has been experi- 
mental; it has been personal. Success in the settle- 
ment has prompted the city to take up many new 
activities and apply them in its schools and recreation 
centers, its hospitals, its lodging houses, and indeed in 
its health, correctional, and police departments. These 
represent the activities, which, as Miss Addams so well 
puts it, the Settlement must stand ready to hand over, 
to leave behind. Were the municipality to stand as 
its financial sponsor, the settlement would lose its 
freedom of action and policy, thus becoming a fixed 
and finite institution, immobile and unplastic. There 
would be no longer an incentive to follow new lines; 
the state cannot afford to originate. It reduces its 
mode of procedure to a set of rules. The very value 
of the settlement would be gone. 

7. When it is necessary to come to the assistance 
of men of the working class it implies that there is 
something lacking in our industrial adjustment. We 
stand upon the assumption that industry, in the ideal 
at least, should take care of its workers. Where the 
Settlement steps in to protect and help workers, whom 
industry fails to maintain regularly in a livable con- 
dition, it supplies something to industry. Industry 
thus owes a debt to the settlement. What sort of 
financial assistance, therefore, does industry give? 
There are cases where large concerns contribute very 
liberally to settlements located in their neighborhood 
in direct recognition of benefits to their workers. The 
City of Cambridge, Mass., is one that has worked up 
a system whereby the various industrial organizations 
make up an annual pool of their contributions which 



ADMINISTRATION AND SUPPORT 97 

is turned over to a committee to be divided among the 
various welfare organizations of the city. 

On the other hand there are cases where profes- 
sional social workers are employed directly by large 
manufacturing and mercantile houses to look after the 
welfare of their employes. Sometimes, through the 
organization of clubs, these social activities almost 
reach the level of settlements. It should be pointed 
out, however, that such cases are where the condition 
of the workers is better or at least higher than the 
average and accordingly where the need is least. It is 
with the workers in the sweated trades where the set- 
tlement is needed most for the very impetus and inspira- 
tion it is able to give that the workers may strive for 
better things. Where struggle is necessary we may 
count on scant financial support from industry. Indeed 
if support is given along social lines, it is with the 
idea of "keeping the hands contented" with "thinking 
and striving" strictly circumscribed. We have heard 
of many mills maintaining professional baseball teams 
which play for the edification of the hands — also free 
"movie shows," etc. Laudable as these efforts are, 
they must not be confused with the aims of the settle- 
ment. It is true that where industry looks out for its 
workers, as it is doing more and more among the better 
grades, the settlement becomes unnecessary. But where 
the settlement is necessary, which is in nine cases out 
of ten, industry is totally unfit to support it. 

8. We are therefore thrown for our financial sup- 
port upon philanthropy. This means that a large 
number of voluntary or semi-voluntary subscriptions 
must be counted upon and that some means must be 



98 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

devised for administering the funds. The usual 
method is the board of managers or trustees in whom 
is vested the legal person of the house. Sometimes it 
is incorporated. Often it is not. Upon the board 
devolves the responsibility of paying the bills and 
maintaining the staff of professional residents along 
with the diversified activities. 

9. No one can deny that it is the duty of the board 
to see that the money is well expended. The board, 
however, is made up very generally of non-residents; 
as a rule, through force of necessity, of persons of some 
financial standing and influence. Indeed the chief 
prerequisites for board members and, in some cases 
their only qualification for social service, is the money 
which they are able to contribute. Though board mem- 
bers are sure to be enthusiastic they are unlikely to 
have the knowledge and experience of the resident, 
and they are certain not to have the same view 
point. 

Granted that these managers are willing and capable 
of raising money, the hope of success lies in the resi- 
dents, those social workers and leaders who know con- 
ditions and can inspire confidence in those on whom 
the settlement depends for its financial support. It is 
a question just how much influence a board of managers 
should exert in the direction of affairs. It is not right 
that a powerful institution should be maintained in a 
neighborhood such as is capable of imposing upon it 
an outside standard over which the neighborhood itself 
has no control. It is not fair to subsidize a reactionary 
influence under the excuse that it is "charity." 

10. The danger of reaction, however, is not so 



ADMINISTRATION AND SUPPORT 99 

great under private patronage as it would be if the 
jwhole of the settlement movement were maintained 
by the municipality. It is an advantage that each 
settlement is maintained independent of the others and 
is left to control its own policy. There is always a 
chance for new sparks of. life where freedom is 
allowed. And freedom must be the byword with those 
who give. They cannot hope to control. I remember 
very distinctly the answer of a conscientious lady trustee 
to one of her fellow board members who was arguing 
for the independence from house control and regula- 
tion of one of the men's clubs meeting in a New York 
settlement. "But don't you see," she said, "that, if 
someone is not there at their meeting, if we are to 
allow them to run the whole thing themselves, it 
Wouldn't be a settlement; we couldn't be responsible 
for what they might do." And very good advice it 
Would have been too, had the club been composed of 
small children instead of thinking and aspiring men. 
The incident is well in point. It explains why so 
many Settlements deal principally with children and 
recreation seeking youth. There are hundreds of 
groups of men, and women too, who want only a place 
to meet, to get their balance, to discuss things. The 
settlement cannot afford to conduct itself on the lines 
of a nursery. It seems well, therefore, to urge most 
strongly that, however the money be given, it must 
be spent for the neighborhood. So far as possible, 
the settlement must be administered by the neighbor- 
hood or by those who understand neighborhood needs, 
spiritual as well as physical, and the relation which 
these needs bear to the larger world outside. 



100 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

1 1. Administration within the settlement is centered 
in the head worker. Much depends upon the per- 
sonality of the man or woman who occupies this posi- 
tion. He must be above all a leader and one with 
infinite tact and breadth of vision. The ability to see 
the other man's point of view is essential. He must 
be able to deal with a board of managers, to inspire 
the workers under him and yet humbly to make the 
poor man his friend. The very force of the head- 
worker's personality is often an obstacle to simple 
neighborhood friendships. Men live in awe of "the 
head." It often takes a particular calamity or a great 
emotional experience to open the way, but such friend- 
ships are not impossible. 

The policy of the house will inevitably be dictated 
by the head. This often results in clashes within the 
circle of workers; especially where other strong per- 
sonalities are trying to exert themselves. Here is one 
of the problems that calls for the very greatest tact 
It is likely that some of the younger workers will be 
lead by their zeal and enthusiasm in wrong directions. 
The headworker must exercise the greatest care that 
he does not suppress individuality nor crush personality 
in his associates. There is no more pitiful figure in 
social service work than a strong personality sur- 
rounded by mediocrities. I attribute much of the 
success that has attended the work of Lillian Wald 
of the Henry Street Settlement to her ability to attract 
and keep with her strong personalities capable of leader- 
ship each in his own specialty. 

12. The personnel of the staff of workers is a con- 
stant and growing problem. Is it to be a question 



ADMINISTRATION AND SUPPORT 101 

of what sort of workers the settlement can command 
or what sort of workers it can get? The pay is not 
good. Some settlements are compelled to take such 
resident workers as apply for "positions." They are 
not as a rule well prepared for the task before them. 
Even though they have passed safely through a course 
in "social science" or "philanthropy," they are not neces- 
sarily qualified to get into intimate social contact with 
the people of varying nationality, ages, and outlook, 
who live in the settlement neighborhood. The average 
professional worker has a tendency to specialize. He 
is likely to concentrate upon "boys' work" or to go 
in for "health work" or some particular phase of the 
whole problem. One of the settlement's principal tasks 
is to keep the artificial relation of these professionals 
to the community a human and natural relation. The 
assistant director of child hygiene for district X is 
an unrelated entity to the busy mother of six children ; 
but Mr. Jones who lives at the settlement around the 
corner and told her what to do for little Sadie when 
she was ailing, is a friend of the family and a valued 
neighbor. 

One of the most difficult tasks in settlement adminis- 
tration is the handling of the volunteer. It is diffi- 
cult to enlist as well as to keep his interest. Because 
he is giving his services, it is not possible to hold him 
closely to task. It is possible, however, to awaken in 
him an understanding of his relation to the neighbor- 
hood, which if once fully comprehended will be a guid- 
ing force throughout his life. 

13. Settlement administration, controlled as it is 
by the settlers and by the patrons, suffers because the 



102 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

neighborhood has little or no voice in the direction of 
the policy of the house. It is true that the average 
neighborhood is not capable of originating and carrying 
out a definite constructive program, but it is not true 
that the neighborhood can do nothing toward that 
end. The effort is worth very nearly as much as the 
accomplishment. Social workers are prone to go ahead 
with their plans without troubling themselves very 
much about local initiative. Even where neighbor- 
hoods are well organized, self expression is a difficult 
thing. There is a tendency for bodies, which purport 
to be representative, to become cliquish. Among settle- 
ments that have come under my observation, Hudson 
Guild of New York has made the sincerest attempt to 
organize its neighborhood and to make it a vital factor 
in administration. The House Council is invested 
with some extraordinary powers as may be seen from 
the following articles which are quoted from its con- 
stitution : 

"Article III, Sec. I — Powers of the Council: 
To assign rooms, to apportion and collect house 
rents, to regulate inter-club affairs and the rela- 
tion of the House with other neighborhood 
houses — to undertake and encourage improve- 
ments in the neighborhood, to establish a court 
in the house, to make house rules, to suspend or 
expel any club, to grant or take away the privi- 
leges from any club. 

Article IV, Sec. I — Duties of the Headworker. 

He shall, from time to time, give information 

to the Council about the state of the House and 



ADMINISTRATION AND SUPPORT 103 

recommend to its consideration such measures as 
he shall deem necessary and expedient — 

Sec. II — The Council may at any time by a 
two-thirds vote impeach the Headworker; 

Article VI, Sec. I — A new club may be ad- 
mitted by the Council to the House and no club 
shall be considered a member of the House until 
it has been formally admitted by the Council." 

It will be seen that absolute powers are given 
to the Council with regard to affairs within the House 
as well as the potential for activities in the neighbor- 
hood. 

Sufficient power is given to over-ride the veto of 
the headworker upon matters of policy. It is a power 
which has been exercised. The right to impeach the 
headworker is unique. Although it has never been 
used, it is nevertheless a real power. 

The Council on its part assumes a real share of 
the financial burden of the house, and undertakes the 
responsibility of underwriting certain items of the 
budget. The report of the Council's Treasurer for 
1912 is significant: 

Receipts Disbursements 

Rents for Clubs $1,194.46 Gas & Electricity $ 992.20 

Rummage sales and do- Coal 495.50 

nations 334.30 Expense of Ball 65.00 

Entertainment and Ball 1,090.52 Repairs & Entertain- 

tainment 944.97 

$2,619.28 

$2,497.67 
Balance $121.61 

14. One of the most difficult of all tasks confront- 
ing the settlement is that of making both ends meet. 
In working over a great number of annual reports, 



104 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

and comparing the sources of income as well as the 
purposes of expenditure, the special demands that are 
made and the fixed costs of mere house maintenance, 
one appreciates the difficulties confronting the budget 
makers. Where totals reach large proportions, it is 
to be, noted that some attempt is usually made to 
separate fixed costs for maintenance from funds for 
special purposes but it is my belief that there is room 
for a great deal of improvement still. Such a separa- 
tion, moreover, is not an easy task. Over and over 
again one will find the settlement running at a deficit 
and yet find a balance remaining in one or more of 
the special accounts. Often a need which is apparently 
great when the budget is made up is satisfied through 
other means. Sometimes a pressing need in a par- 
ticular direction may demand the immediate expendi- 
ture of funds actually reserved for other ends. Sums 
set aside for house maintenance are often cut into in 
this way. Occasionally fixed expenses of maintenance 
may swallow up a disproportionate amount of the 
general contributions. 

Funds for summer fresh air work are by all odds 
the easiest to raise, and yet it is the very form of settle- 
ment work which can be made nearest to self-support- 
ing. One reason for this is that nothing facilitates 
the raising of money so much as the ability to show 
concretely where that money goes. It is my belief 
that, in the ideal at least, all settlement funds raised 
by contributions should go for special purposes or for 
"extension work." I believe that if settlements made 
a point of this and attempted to visualize their most 
immediate needs, giving the public the assurance that 



ADMINISTRATION AND SUPPORT 105 

every cent went to put that particular work a step 
ahead, the public would be far readier to contribute. 

Such a policy, however, would necessitate certain 
other reforms in administration and budget making. 
First, definite sources of income must be provided to 
cover maintenance and standardized work. Second, 
these costs must be reduced to the absolute minimum 
compatible with the maintenance of the standard. The 
old story of the chintz curtains and the window boxes 
is a case in point. It is difficult to convince a certain 
class of contributors that the house is in need of 
assistance, when they see that it is kept neat and clean 
and note that those minor details such as chintz and 
window boxes, which do so much to add quality and 
refinement, are regularly renewed. I know of one 
contributor, who discontinued his subscription to a 
certain settlement, because he said he could not afford 
flowers for his own home and he didn't propose to 
put his money into a general fund to buy window boxes 
for somebody else. It must be admitted that there is 
some justice in his criticism. I have merely used the 
chintz and the window boxes as symbols of those many 
questions of settlement expense which must be met in 
such a way as to prevent misunderstandings. A more 
definite classification of both receipts and expenditures, 
as well as a wider publicity for financial statements is 
imperative. 

Although voluntary contributions are in most cases 
the principal, they are not by any means the only source 
of income. Almost all houses list among their re- 
ceipts "dues from members." Sometimes this is 
divided into two items, "dues" and "dues for house 



106 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

membership." It implies, besides those who are ac- 
tually using the facilities of the house, a class of people 
not necessarily "contributors," who are interested 
enough to belong to the organization. In many cases 
these dues represent neighborhood membership. Many 
houses follow the policy of inviting different "classes 
of membership," dubbing a member "contributing," 
"sustaining," "patron," "benefactor," or even "found- 
er," according to the amount of cash that is turned 
over. Some houses make the mistake of going after 
the "big fellows" only. They lose not'only the financial 
support, which amounts to a considerable total even 
though contributed in small amounts, but also a wider 
range of acquaintance and much valuable publicity. 
Small contributions, moreover, can more effectively be 
counted upon as regular. There is a positive danger 
where the financial stability of the settlement is based 
too greatly upon one or even a few large contributors. 
It means that such sources of supply may be shut off 
at any time by the defection of a single friend. It will 
then be well nigh impossible to find a single contributor 
ready and willing to assume the finite financial burden 
of the establishment, and certainly a matter of time 
before a circle of small contributors can be built up 
to carry the deficit. For this reason it seems to me a 
sounder policy to depend for fixed expenses upon dues 
paid regularly in small amounts and upon fixed sources 
of income such as rent, regularly chargeable fees, re- 
ceipts from regular entertainments and activities, and, 
from income on endowment funds. On the other hand 
special activities, extension work, and emergency work 
may be carried by gifts for special purposes from larger 



ADMINISTRATION AND SUPPORT 107 

contributors. In cases of this kind, there is far more 
chance of meeting the deficit by a special campaign for 
the particular form of emergency work concerned, if 
the gift be discontinued. 

There is little doubt in my mind that settlements 
have not gone far enough in their effort to develop 
definite sources of income. The University Settlement 
of New York is somewhat better placed in this respect 
than the majority. For this reason I have thought it 
well to include here their summary of income and 
expenditure account for the year ending December 
31st, 1919. 

Expenditure 

Upkeep of Settlement House and Expenses of Ad- 
ministration $18,284.35 

Gymnasium Expenses 2,229.29 

Social Work Expenses 3,823.32 

Bathing Establishment Expenses t 11,485.90 

Summer Camp Expenses 6,579.26 

$42,402.12 
Income 

Dues, six classes of membership $9,441.25 

Donations 4,741.10 

Rents, including banking space 5,275.10 

Income from investments 1,320.00 

Interest from Banks 39.50 

Gymnasium Rental Fees 955.49 

Fees from Public Bath Establishment 14,078.22 

Summer Camp Income, Board, etc 6,105.43 

$41,956.09 
Deficit for the year ...- - 446.03 

$42,402.12 

In striking contrast to the above is the statement 
of East Side House, Income for the year ending 
December 31st, 1920, 



108 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

Contributions and other income $27,711-24 

Donations to pay deficit of 1919 13,137.13 

Board of residents and guests at Camp 7,351.51 

Proceeds of concert 1,460.00 

Proceeds of clothing sales 7,073.37 

Fees 5,696.49 

House dues 341.70 

Proceeds of raffle 595.00 

Total Income $63,366.44 

There is not room in these pages for detailed dis- 
cussion of the classified items of either receipts or 
expenditures. In order, however, to give the lay reader 
some idea of the amount of money involved, I have 
thought well to include in one of the appendices a list 
of expenditures of typical houses. 



CHAPTER IX 



PROBLEMS OF RACE 



1. America has for years past been dependent upon 
European immigration for the recruiting of its labor 
supply. The foreigner has been called upon to do 
the cheapest, lowest and most unskilled grade of 
work. Situated as settlements are in industrial quar- 
ters, they are confronted by the problem of dealing 
not alone with the laborer and the many difficulties 
which he ordinarily encounters but of dealing with him 
as an immigrant beset by the additional difficulties 
which his removal to a strange country has forced upon 
him. The settlement is again and again called upon 
to be his wise counsellor and friend. It is essential 
therefore that one who would understand settlement 
relationships should have a working knowledge of the 
delicate problems of race differences and the assimila- 
tion of the immigrant. 

2. In the United States approximately one-seventh 
of the total population is of foreign birth while over 
one-third is either of foreign birth or of foreign 
parentage. 9 In the twelve states of Massachusetts, 
Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, 
Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, North Da- 
kota, South Dakota, Montana and Utah over half of 



Census of 1910. 

109 



110 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

the population is either of foreign birth or of foreign 
parentage. 9 The foreign language population of the 
United States has been estimated at about one-fifth 
of the total or twenty millions. Of this number it 
is said approximately a half can best be reached through 
the means of their native tongue. At least three mil- 
lion of these have no understanding whatsoever of 
the English language. 

3. The immigrant is in difficulties almost as soon 
as he lands in the country. Americans are not of 
one mind in the attitude which they take toward the 
foreigner. There are those who believe that the doors 
should be open because America is the land of the 
free and all men should be given equal opportunity 
to come here and avail themselves of its advantages. 
There are others who believe that a ready supply of 
cheap labor is necessary for industry and that immigra- 
tion should be kept active so that a constant supply of 
labor may be always available. There are those on 
the other hand, who hate the foreigner and seek to 
exclude him; who even desire to send him back or 
to do anything to get rid of him; because as they 
declare, he is "ruining America." Recently there have 
been still others clamoring that the bars should be let 
down that the Chinese coolie should be admitted and 
the European kept out because, such is their conten- 
tion, all European labor has become infested with the 
germ of bolshevism. 

4. The average immigrant has been induced to come 
to the new world possibly through the promises of 
some enterprising steamship agent or influenced per- 
haps by the picture which has been painted for him 



PROBLEMS OF RACE 111 

by one covertly in the employ of one of the large 
industrial concerns, of a land flowing with riches, 
where after a few years of effort one may retire in 
affluence. In all probability he will arrive heavily mort- 
gaged by reason of advances for passage money. Un- 
less he come at the behest of relatives already estab- 
lished or protected by previous assurances of employ- 
ment at some particular point, he will generally find 
himself "dumped" in New York. Here without an 
understanding of the English language, with no knowl- 
edge of the nation or its customs but only hope, he 
will be crowded into a tenement district in quarters 
which are congested and often unfit for human habita- 
tion. 

The immigrant is at the outset exposed to all the 
factional and political quarrels of which he has been 
the victim in the old country. He will find that many 
of the prejudices with which Europeans grow up have 
simply been transplanted to America. He will also 
be subjected to misunderstandings due to ignorance 
and inexperience brought about by close contact with 
people of another race with other customs, language 
and manners. That which is outside the average man's 
experience is incomprehensible to him and he either 
shuns it or fears it. The immigrant is no exception 
to this rule. The complexities of life in a tenement 
neighborhood with its contacts with other immigrant 
groups and customs are at the outset a distinct em- 
barrassment to him. 

5. In some of our western cities where living con- 
ditions are not so congested as in New York, the lot 
of the immigrant is likely to be a little better. Even 



112 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

though he may make his first home in a tenement he 
•will find the bulk of his countrymen living in small 
family houses and a similar home for himself will not 
be outside the bounds of his ambition. In the lesser 
cities the immigrant has far more of a chance to own 
property than in New York.* He will be more able 
to pick and choose. He will take refuge from the 
strangeness of the new world among his own country- 
men, with the result that we find large areas or, as 
one might say practically whole quarters in cities like 
Detroit and Cleveland populated by one race exclu- 
sively. This will mean that the customs, habits and 
manners as well as language are transplanted to 
America. 

Though living conditions are better in the foreign 
born quarter made up of small family homes than in 
rotten congested tenements such as are the rule in 
New York, the foreigner will still face his greatest 
handicap. He will have practically no means for favor- 
able contact with American life. 

6. The average American usually looks down upon 
the immigrant, what ever his employment or skill, 
from a pinnacle of self satisfaction based on the 
hypothesis that he, the American, should always be 
paid more than the foreigner. The native born is 
quite ready to patronize the newcomer but always 
with emphasis on his own acknowledged social and 
industrial superiority. The "foreigner" is known by 
various uncomplimentary nicknames. He is called a 
"mick," a "dago," a "hunkie," a "polock," a "bohunk," 
or a "kike." He is frankly outside of the social horizon 
of the average American. 



PROBLEMS OF RACE 113 

The latter, however, is a zealous supporter of the 
policy that has come to be known as Americanization. 
The ending of the Great War was followed by a furor 
of zeal to Americanize. This meant to the popular 
mind the curtailment of the foreign language press; 
the suppression of all radical utterances; indeed of 
all criticism of the government by the foreign born; 
the cramming of English down the foreigner's throat; 
and the deportation of all trouble makers or "bolshe- 
vists," as they were loosely called, who expressed any 
dissatisfaction with the established order of things. 
This wave of prejudice against the alien rose to such 
a pitch that there is no doubt but that justice was in 
many cases actually denied, and many innocent victims 
grouped under the blanket charge of being "agita- 
tors." A single misguided immigrant driven to blind 
despair and rage at the treatment he has received and 
the insults that have been heaped upon him can, by a 
single insult to the flag or a single act of violence, bring 
down upon all immigrants more distrust, more per- 
secution, and more misunderstandings. 

The settlements have come in for their share of 
criticism because of their sympathy with their foreign 
born neighbors and their insistence that they would 
tolerate no curtailment of American rights within 
their sphere of influence. Because of this stand, there 
have been those who have hurled at the settlements 
the charge that they were harborers of bolshevism, 
were pernicious, decadent, and un-American. (See 
appendix A). So high did this sort of feeling run in 
the period just following the close of the war that 
many settlement houses found themselves with very 



114 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

seriously diminished incomes because of the with- 
drawal of support, while it became comparatively easy 
to raise money for any new venture in Americaniza- 
tion work, especially if emphasis were placed on the 
teaching of English. 

7. There can be no question but that it is a real 
help to the foreigner to learn English and it is safe 
to say that any effective program of Americanization 
should be built up around the learning of the English 
language as a beginning. It should be recognized, 
however, that teaching the language is not the end 
sought but merely one of the means to be employed. 
So far as young children are concerned, the teaching 
of English is made comparatively easy through class- 
room work in the schools and still more so by the daily 
contact of the foreign language speaking child with 
the great body of his English speaking companions 
both at school and in the streets. 

8. For the alien parents the task is far more diffi- 
cult. Unless the daily work of the father brings him 
into contact with native American life, there is very 
little opportunity open to him for learning English 
save classes in night school. The fatigue from his 
daily work and his natural reluctance to exert himself 
again after the day's work has been done make this 
means not only distasteful to him but also extremely 
difficult. Under the best conditions the learning of a 
language in a class is unsatisfactory and very generally 
ineffective. For the immigrant laborer fatigued from 
the day's work, even anxious as he is to speak English, 
the best that can be said is that it is possible for him 
to learn if he applies himself diligently. There are 



PROBLEMS OF RACE 115 

cases, however, where learning through classes is an 
impossibility. The great steel strike of 1919 brought 
out the fact that some 50% of the workers in the 
industry worked a ten to thirteen hour day and one 
half of these seven days a week. Men have no time 
for night school under such a schedule. 

The alien mother, as a general rule, simply does 
not learn English. Over and over again one hears, 
"no, we don't speak English at home on account of 
the mother." Living in a neighborhood surrounded 
by her own people, going out to shop at the small 
stands kept by her countrymen, and returning to her 
home and family, she has little call to learn the new 
language. 

9. The conditions which I recite are typical of the 
tendencies and conditions which face the average set- 
tlement situated in an immigrant section. As an 
interpreter of America to the foreign born the settle- 
ment performs an immensely valuable work. Indeed, 
the relation which is possible in this case is typical of 
the best that lies in the settlement idea. Canon Barnett 
in his first London settlement sought to interpret the 
best that lay in life; its art, its education, its culture, 
its traditions, in terms comprehensible to the working- 
man. The American settlement is confronted by a 
still greater task. It must in addition be an interpreter 
between races. 

At the outset there is the difficulty of language. Al- 
most all settlements situated in a foreign language 
neighborhood either conduct classes in English them- 
selves or co-operate with other organizations such as 
the schools or libraries where such classes are held. 



116 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

It is my belief that mere classes are of very little value 
unless supplemented by social gatherings where the 
opportunity of speaking and hearing English spoken 
in a natural way is given. The settlement is well fitted 
to give assistance and by its manifold activities has 
the power of attracting the foreigner into a natural 
contact with American life. 

10. But classes in English go only a very little 
way. They reach only a certain restricted number and 
type of immigrant. Many of our settlement workers 
have found it advisable to take up the study of foreign 
languages in order to be able to converse with the 
immigrant in his own tongue. Another way to the 
same end and one which is sure to bring sympathetic 
contact, is to have among the residents in the settle- 
ment at least one who is by birth a foreigner but who 
has become assimilated, possessing education and under- 
standing of American institutions but with that rarer 
knowledge of the customs, ideals, and aspirations of 
his more recently arrived countrymen. Right here it 
might be said that I do not know of a single settlement 
but that has on its staff pitifully few equipped for this 
valuable work. I am taking into consideration the real 
assistance that can be rendered in this direction by 
volunteers. 

We have only just come to realize the fact that the 
matured foreigner can be taught more effectively about 
America and its institutions if his own language be 
used. Even some of those who were in haste to 
destroy the foreign language newspaper have been 
forced to recognize its real educational value. The 
placing of foreign language translations of standard 



PROBLEMS OF RACE 117 

American works in the circulating public libraries has 
been followed by an increased demand. The foreign 
born have a zest for absorbing a knowledge of the 
new country. Their demand for historical and philo- 
sophical works puts to shame the greediness of the 
native born for cheap fiction. . It is the task of those 
who would help the new citizen to make it as easy as 
possible for him. They can stimulate the desire and 
direct perhaps, but they should leave the immigrant free 
to form his own conclusions. 

11. Though settlements have been willing, they 
have been slow to co-operate with the organized work 
of the foreign language groups in this country. There 
are representatives in America of no less than thirty- 
five different tongues. The Bureau of Foreign Lan- 
guage Information Service of the American Red Cross 
reports that during the war there were in existence 
67,000 organizations 10 representing the locals of 17 
of these principal groups. These associations are 
making a great contribution toward Americanization. 
They are organizing schools as well as special classes 
and they are conducting a campaign of educational 
work with which the settlements would do well to 
co-operate. 

There are many clubs organized among those foreign 
born who have had the advantages of American educa- 
tion which meet regularly with the avowed purpose of 
arousing their more recently arrived countrymen to 
avail themselves of the opportunities and privileges of 
American life. While consistently standing for the 

,0 The practical suppression of the German and Russian organiza- 
tions has in its effect reduced this figure to about 35,000. 



118 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

study of American institutions, organizations of this 
type have performed a real service by seeking to foster 
the best traditions of the fatherland in art, music, 
literature and the handicrafts. 

12. The desire of the educated immigrant to retain 
something of the old country is a natural race impulse 
born of the human desire to impress something of the 
individual upon society. The contribution which the 
foreigner is able to make to American life is too often 
overlooked, especially since the advent of the whirl- 
wind Americanization propaganda. To keen minds, 
however, the value of the heritage of the immigrant 
has always been apparent. Back in 1908, Police Com- 
missioner Bingham, addressing the annual meeting 
of the University Settlement, said : 

"There is one thing about your work which 
seems to me extremely important. No doubt it 
has occurred to you all, and I have no doubt that 
you are working along these lines, but what has 
struck us over in Mulberry Street is, that in helping 
foreigners in our country certain precautions must 
be observed. . . . Let patience be the word, 
let tolerance be the word and charity. Don't be 
in too much of a hurry to make American citizens 
of the boys and girls who are growing up, I mean, 
to the forgetfulness of everything that is behind 
them and their forefathers. The Jewish race, the 
Yiddish-speaking people in this town, from various 
nations of Europe, all have behind them a race 
history, a national history, a literature, a develop- 
ment in art and literature, all of which should be 



PROBLEMS OF RACE 119 

honored and prized by them. So of the Italian, 
so of the French, so of other nations, — never 
mind. Take them as you find them. Graft the 
American spirit upon their own history and tradi- 
tion, and in my judgment, and I am not alone 
in this, you will have more loyal Americans, — 
and then you will also to a large extent assist in 
not creating that idea of license, which is occa- 
sioned when liberty is suddenly given to a man 
who does not understand it as we do, and which 
brings home the idea that liberty is license. That 
is the great trouble we are confronted with here 
in New York, not so much real wickedness as a 
misunderstanding of the whole situation." 

13. America has benefited from the contributions 
which immigrants have made to its national life to a 
degree which is very little appreciated. The first 
great wave of foreign speaking immigration follow- 
ing the European Revolutions of 1848, brought great 
numbers of Germans to the United States. They 
proved to be not only sound and practical men in indus- 
try but contributed to the improvement of American 
farming to an extent for which they have never been 
given credit. Even as late as 1910 the census figures 
reported that over 31% of all foreign born farmers 
in the United States were of German birth. Wendelin 
Grimm, who immigrated in 1857, brought with him 
the bag of seed which, with careful cultivation, was 
to make the Grimm Alfalfa one of the staple crops 
of the northwest. Another German, Carl Schurz, as 
Secretary of the Interior, 1877-1881, was the first to 



120 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

urge the systematic protection and conservation of 
American forests. 

The Scandinavian races have made a valuable con- 
tribution to the development of agriculture. They have 
located principally in the north central states, where 
they have been a factor in developing the co-operative 
movement among farmers. According to the last cen- 
sus over half of the farms in Minnesota and North 
Dakota were operated by foreign born; in Wisconsin 
40% ; while in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New 
Jersey about a quarter of the farms were worked by 
farmers of alien birth. The whole question of inten- 
sive farming has been greatly stimulated by immigra- 
tion. The European peasant has been accustomed to 
doing only intensive farming at home because of the 
outworn condition of the soil. When he comes to 
America he instinctively applies intensive methods to 
the virgin soil, which has been so prodigally treated 
and so easily discarded by the native farmer. 

14. In the arts and letters America has also re- 
ceived valuable contributions from the immigrant. 
American music drew its first great impetus from the 
devotion of German-Americans. The more recent wave 
of Italian immigration has brought renewed vigor to 
its development. The Italians have come the nearest 
to popularizing music in America. They have increased 
the number of concerts and have tried to make music 
the possession of the common man. The Russians and 
Bohemians have also made their contribution. One 
has only to read over the foreign sounding names on 
any orchestra list to be made aware of this. 

Of late the Italians have made their influence felt 



PROBLEMS OF RACE 121 

in sculpture and in the decorative arts. They have 
supplied besides common labor a goodly number of 
skilled artisans. In New York City there is an embryo 
Bohemian glass industry and a Russian brass industry. 
In literature too the foreign born have come to wield 
an influence. They are in especial evidence as con- 
tributors to the more serious type of periodical. Among 
the colleges the number of professorships held by 
Americans of foreign birth has been steadily increasing. 

15. There are those who see only an evil and a 
sign of decay in this weaving of foreign influence into 
the web of American life. Whether it is so or not, 
it is a force which has begun to operate and which 
nothing can stop. It is impossible within the scope of 
this volume to trace the gradations of foreign influence 
upon American society. I am attempting only to 
show that it exists and that it is inevitable. It is 
possible, however, in receiving the foreigner at the time 
when we acquaint him with our institutions, to relate 
him back to his own past and to seek from him some 
contribution of value to our society which he may 
bring with him from his own. I have attempted only 
to cite a few of the most obvious contributions that 
the foreigner has already made. It is my purpose prin- 
cipally to encourage those who are pessimistic to seek 
something better from the immigrant. Men give very 
largely what is expected of them. It is as true of the 
immigrant as of any others. Settlements are placed 
in a position where theirs is a vital opportunity to 
stimulate and keep alive inheritances, which when nur- 
tured may prove to be contributions of social value. 

16. The linking of the immigrant to his past has 



122 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

its value too as a stabilizing factor in all Americaniza- 
tion work. I remember the pathos of an interview 
with a Jewish father who told me that the settlement 
had ruined his son. And yet the settlement as well 
as his schooling had done for the boy just what Com- 
missioner Bingham proposed. It had tried to bring out 
of him what he had to give. It had stimulated his 
intellect, encouraged him to take part in debates, lent 
him books in which he had learned of a life of which 
he wished to be a part. In other words the mind of 
the Jew, always fine and intellectual, was liberated for 
expansion and usefulness. But at home the boy was 
unruly, disrespectful and unmanageable. Three little 
rooms up a flight of stairs that smelled of all creation, 
a large family, and a mother who spoke no English 
furnished little competition to the clean and exciting 
outside world. It is the settlement role not only to 
reach the child but the family. Nevertheless, where 
parents are slow and accustomed to old ways, even to 
hardship and to drudgery, it is difficult to reach them. 
Then, just as in this case, they are unable to under- 
stand their own children. 

17. The pathos of the incident is typical of thou- 
sands of cases among immigrants yet it is not alone 
confined to them. It is the desire of all American 
parents to have their children enjoy advantages which 
they could not themselves attain. Yet it is a sad fact 
when the children realize that their life has gotten 
beyond the horizon which their parents are able to com- 
prehend. It is a positive danger where the children 
throw off all restraint and indulge "not in liberty but 
in license." This is one of the problems of our modern 



PROBLEMS OF RACE 123 

age, to balance the new understanding, the new facts, 
the new possibilities with substance. The settlement 
must help the immigrant and those who come to it 
to build foundations. This, however, does not mean 
circumscription nor reaction. The settlement must 
not be content to teach old fashioned rules of conduct. 
It must recognize the vitality in the new life and urge 
forward continually; but it must teach the new blood 
that institutions are but the expression of a need and 
that they must not be destroyed unless the need be 
removed, or other needs become greater, or unless 
some equivalent may be substituted. 

"Produce and give — and, with all tolerance for 
the lesser vision of the fathers but with respect 
for their accomplishment — contribute!" 

This should be the slogan of all programs for 
Americanization. 

18. It has already been pointed out that favorable 
contact with American life is the surest and most evi- 
dent means of Americanization. Of the immigrant 
family the children of course have the greater ad- 
vantages. The mother, as has already been indicated, 
enjoys practically none. When the immigrant woman 
remains in the home, her life is isolated and remote 
from American influence. When she goes into indus- 
try, be the influence favorable or not, she is at least 
in contact with life in America. The immigrant man 
is always subjected to industrial contacts. His daily 
breadwinning calls him into competition with American 
labor either industrial or agricultural. It is a contact 
which is rich in possibilities. There are three factors 



124 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

to be considered : First, there is the immigrant himself 
who is ignorant, illiterate, and unprepared even though 
he be willing. Second, there is the American laborer, 
who looks askance at the immigrant as one who would 
rob him of his birthright, one who is only fit for 
low work, and one who, as has already been said, is 
altogether beneath the native American's consideration. 
Third, there is the American employer. His relation 
to the immigrant while not evident or direct is full 
of subtle perplexities. It is a relationship into which 
it is necessary to inquire further at this point. 

19. To be perfectly frank, the attitude of the Amer- 
ican employer toward immigrant labor is controlled 
practically entirely by whatever course is calculated to 
produce the greatest profit to himself. Policies, of 
course, are susceptible to change and vary with con- 
ditions. That day may not be far distant, however, 
when the American employer, will come to believe 
that many policies which may be immediately profitable 
are impolitic because of possible future maldevelop- 
ments. At present, one of the commonest attitudes 
which the employer takes is that of disinterestedness. 
It is nothing to him who works for him or how that 
man lives so long as the work is done. Such a policy 
will do for times when labor is cheap and plentiful 
but the moment it becomes scarce the cost of "hiring 
and firing" goes up and it is to the interest of the 
employer to "train" his men. Of course, policies will 
vary with the nature of the work. There are many 
cases however, where, ignorant labor is preferred. In 
many industries the skilled are in the minority and 
must be supplemented by a great body of unskilled 



PROBLEMS OF RACE 125 

workers. An ignorant class of labor asks fewer ques- 
tions and is content with less. Immigration has con- 
tinued to supply American industry with such a class. 
20. There is no doubt but that in spite of the con- 
tract labor law immigrants have been brought in on 
tacit agreements which violate its spirit. I quote from 
the report of the Commissioner General of Immigra- 
tion for 1907 (p.p. 70-71): 

"The most distressing branch of alien contract- 
labor law violations is that which involves the use 
of what is commonly called the "padrone system" ; 
for by this means not only is foreign labor intro- 
duced under contract or agreement, but often the 
laborers are mere boys and are practically enslaved 
by the padrones who effect their importation. This 
system is applied principally to youths of the 
Italian and Greek races, the boys being placed 
at hard labor, with long hours, under conditions 
wholly unsuited to their age, and subject to a 
wage arrangement which amounts practically to 
a system of blackmailing; in other words they 
are in effect owned by the men who advance the 
money and procure their immigration from Greece 
and Italy." 

The padrone and peonage system has been used ex- 
tensively to gather recruits for the lumber industry. 
It is practiced in Maine and in Minnesota and North 
Dakota. Under it the, master has a secure hold over 
the laborer. If the latter tries to escape, he may be 
imprisoned or compelled to return until he has worked 



126 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

off the debt owed on account of the money advanced 
to him to allow him to immigrate. 

21. The padrone system is not the only means used 
for procuring and keeping cheap labor. When large 
tracts of land are owned by employing companies, when 
the industry is conducted at isolated plants, at mines 
or remote lumber camps, we hear of the company or 
"closed" town. At the outset let it be said that the 
company town may be so administered that, though 
paternalistic, it may be physically beneficial to the work- 
man. One who doubts the possibility of this need only 
investigate Port Sunlight in England, the home of the 
famous Lever Bros. Soap. There are cases, however, 
where the company's power is not so beneficially used. 

Complete ownership of land gives a great advantage 
to the company. The protection of its property rights 
may involve such a paramount exercise of authority 
that the existence of any other rights may be altogether 
neglected, or even denied, where their exercise might 
tend to jeopardize the larger dominant property interest. 
Fear and shortsightedness are responsible for such con- 
ditions. To be conscious that they exist, one has only 
to note the general slurs which are handed out to men 
and women who have attempted to do welfare work 
in industrial communities. The charge has generally 
been, that such people are "busy bodies," and "agi- 
tators"; that they do a great harm by stirring up 
"discontent." The inference is that immigrants of 
the common labor class prefer to live in dirt and squal- 
or until some agitator comes along and puts foolish 
ideas in their heads. It is very easy to agitate; it is 
very difficult to build. There are plenty of agitators 



PROBLEMS OF RACE 127 

of the type who incite men for the love of being fol- 
lowed and who are unbalanced by the spell of leader- 
ship. Employers make their mistake when they fail 
to distinguish the destructive from the constructive 
type. The former may be said to incite his followers 
to "rise and take" ; the latter to "learn and do." Both 
types have their place in social history. When the door 
is closed to all constructive work, it is an invitation 
to the destructive type. Social workers actually have 
been barred from closed or company towns. Settle- 
ments have been looked askance at and their workers 
criticized for meddling in other peoples' business. 
Labor leaders have had technical charges preferred 
against them in order to get rid of them. 

22. Undoubtedly the selfish motive is prevalent in 
much of this opposition to so-called welfare work, but 
it is my belief that it is in greater measure due to 
shortsightedness, fear, and lack of understanding on 
the part of the employer. I stress this point here 
because the attitude and point of view of the employer 
must be understood by those who have the desire to 
help in the great task of the Americanization of the 
common labor type of immigrant. The settlement has 
a background and a method of approach which should 
be of invaluable service in bridging the difficulties and 
misunderstandings between ignorant immigrant labor 
and its employer. 

23. Slow as is the process of assimilation of the 
foreign born into American life, we have already ar- 
rived at a point where we are conscious of certain 
tendencies. The race rivalries and misunderstandings, 
which are apparent at first, certainly diminish in in- 



128 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

tensity as the immigrant learns the language and cus- 
toms of the United States. Among the better class 
of immigrants this process is more rapid. It is where 
groups of foreign born live in isolation under squalid 
and unfavorable conditions that prejudices persist the 
longest. In other words, with education and with the 
growth of a common interest, race rivalries and hatreds 
tend to die out altogether. 

24. In Europe nationality has been built up and 
preserved by an insistence on racial differences and 
the domination of racial prejudices within limited 
localities. Indeed race prejudices have been the means 
used by parties in power to rally their nationals to their 
support whenever public indignation or distrust of the 
government has risen to a threatening point. By this 
means it has been possible to divert attention from 
local and economic issues and even to deny elementary 
rights if it be avowed that the government's purpose 
therein is to serve the state. Disgust with this sort 
of tactics, of which they have been the victims, has 
rilled the European peasant and laborer with distrust 
of governments in general. They have had before 
them, however, the vision of a democracy across the 
water in America. Their traditional concept of the 
United States has been based upon a literal interpreta- 
tion of the Constitution and of the Declaration of 
Independence. In their minds Americans have pledged 
themselves to these principles and have put that pledge 
upon paper. 

25. Notwithstanding the differences between guar- 
antees of liberty in theory and in practice which are 
so frequently a source of disappointment to the immi- 



PROBLEMS OF RACE 129 

grant from Europe, in America we have found a com- 
munity of interest and a common purpose stronger 
than loyalty to race. Nationality is bounded neither 
by lines of locality nor by lines of race. In the great 
size of the United States and in the diversity of races 
which compose its population, the influences which have 
shaped European development have been lost sight of 
in the greater dominating "society of the nation." So 
huge and so self-contained are the United States that, 
more than anywhere else in the world, is it possible 
to think of the nation as society. The United States 
is probably the largest political unit which may be 
called a social entity. Certainly at the present writing 
it is doubtful whether Russia may be called either a 
social or a political entity. The British Empire on 
the other hand, while it undoubtedly is a political, is 
certainly not in any sense a social entity. 

26. Despite its heterogeneous make-up the United 
States has demonstrated its social entity. Before 
America was drawn into the late war, pro-German sym- 
pathies were widely and openly expressed. When it 
became finally evident that the German government 
would consider none except German rights and when 
the United States threw all its resources on the side 
of the Allies for the maintenance of the reign of law 
between nations, practically to a man the German born 
population of the United States came forward in sup- 
port of their adopted country. 

It would be ridiculous to assume that this loyalty 
w T as the result of a conscious recognition of the 
superiority of a nation organized upon social as op- 
posed to racial lines. I do not believe that, if such 



130 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

a thought found expression, it was felt by more than 
a very few. Human beings in the mass act upon 
convictions felt and compelling rather than upon mo- 
tives analyzed and expressed. * I 'am sensible that 
materialistic thought following the close of the war has 
sought to attribute all causes for action to practical and 
self-seeking ends and to discount the influence of ideals 
as mere "camouflage." To me the virtual unanimity 
of the mixed racial population of the United States 
in its participation in the war is an all powerful and 
significant fact. In spite of the advantage that was 
taken of the ignorant foreigner by many of the draft 
boards for compulsory service, where technicalities 
were made to count against him, the foreign born resi- 
dent and particularly his family stood by the United 
States. The high aggregate of subscriptions to the 
Liberty Loans made in small amounts by the employees 
in industry throughout the country testify to the loyalty 
of the laboring classes. For detailed information of 
the part played by various immigrant groups in the 
war the reader is referred to Appendix C at the end 
of this volume. This participation was not all a result 
of compulsion. Unless the foreign born citizen had 
been stimulated by a deeply felt ideal, a belief that 
that which he held to be essential, was made possible 
by the United States, he could not have given such a 
full measure of his support. 

27. Looking back over the whole problem of differ- 
ence in race, which confronts the nation, we find that 
we have come to certain conclusions. It must be made 
easier for the foreign born to come into contact with 
American life and institutions. Advantage should be 



PROBLEMS OF RACE 131 

taken of the use of his own language to help him more 
readily to learn about his adopted country. The for- 
eign born should be called upon to contribute his share 
to the building of America. His own racial inheritance 
as well as his physical labor should be drawn upon 
and moulded into the society of the nation. In the 
ascendancy of the ideal of the United States, as a 
society of free individual groups and units, where race 
interests are lost sight of in the greater social interest, 
there is the hope of an end of race rivalries and hatreds, 
and of the growth of a new and greater society than 
the world has yet seen. 

The foreign born newcomer must put something into 
that society and he will feel proud of his part in it. 
Just as the early colonists founded their New England 
in America into which they put the best of the ideals 
and traditions of their race, so must the more recent 
arrivals in contributing a part of their inheritance from 
their motherland found in America a beloved ancestraJ 
heritage for their children. 



CHAPTER X 

PROBLEMS OF RELIGION 

1. Beside the prejudices which still exist with re- 
gard to race, the prejudices of religion which have sur- 
vived the age of intolerance are negligible indeed. 
There are, nevertheless, perplexing differences of re- 
ligious opinion which are in many ways representative 
of the differences of race as well as the factional 
differences which have survived from the old country. 
The sacred place which religion holds in human life, 
the great body of tradition with which it is interwoven, 
and its relation to ethics and morals make questions 
which touch a man's religion exceedingly delicate to 
handle. 

As a human agency the settlement is brought face 
to face with the problem of religion. As an agency 
which ministers to human needs it must have a definite 
religious policy. The settlement desires above all things 
to keep its breadth of sympathy. It is, therefore, 
impolitic to limit its religious activity to any one 
accepted channel of religious observance. Various 
sects with varying rites, customs and traditions have 
become so bound up with man's worship of God, that 
it has become difficult for men to unite in the adoration 
of the Infinite. 

2. In the resolve to avoid the divisions which have 

132 



PROBLEMS OF RELIGION 133 

split the church, most settlement houses, including even 
those which are administered by churches, have declared 
themselves to be non-sectarian. Since all creeds are in 
the essential, interpretations which men give to their 
religious beliefs, it is difficult to interpret religion, 
especially to the young, if no one form of observance 
can be followed. Settlements have not been united 
in their policy in this regard. There are some who 
insist that some form of religious instruction should 
be given. The difficulty has been to reduce the form 
to essentials such as will give offense to no one. 

Situated as settlements are in mixed neighborhoods 
they are brought into contact with representatives of 
all of the religious movements of the globe. Not only 
are there varieties of beliefs among those who profess 
to be Christians but Jew and Gentile are found hud- 
dled together in the same quarter. If the settlement 
gives religious instruction for one sect to the neglect 
of another it will mean that the house is going to 
limit its influence in the neighborhood to that one 
sect. Its very basis of existence, however, is for the 
avowed purpose of furnishing a meeting ground for 
all elements that make up the society of its neighbor- 
hood. It is impossible, therefore, to teach or espouse 
any cause that is not acceptable to all. 

3. Greenwich House in New York City has spoken 
a very decided negative against the attempt on the 
part of settlements to do avowedly religious work. 
Even as expressed in the excellent little "Settlement 
Catechism," I think this attitude has given rise to 



See Appendix B. 



134. THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

considerable misconception." The average outsider is 
horrified to hear it said that the settlement has no 
time for religious instruction. This natural feeling 
is due more to misconception than anything else. When 
it is said that the settlement does not believe in religious 
work it does not mean that the settlement fails also 
to recognize that the same issue must be met in a moral 
problem. Because courses in religious instruction are 
not considered the most practical means for gaining 
the end sought one must not infer that no other method 
is employed. The settlement recognizes the love of 
one's fellow men as the first essential of human life 
but it holds of lesser importance the historical fact 
that it was Jesus Christ who declared that brotherly 
love was the word of God. The settlement holds that 
right living is the greatest moral force in the world 
and accordingly puts its emphasis on living rather than 
teaching morals. 

Any one who has had any experience with boys' 
work- should appreciate the truth of this. The grow- 
ing boy is an outwardly unemotional creature and he 
is particularly averse to being told to be good. Critics 
of the religious side of settlement work are prone to 
forget the great moral influence of the club and the 
game. The same boy who sneers at the stuffiness of 
the class in religion will be the strongest upholder of 
the morals of his club and the ablest example of the 
ethics of sportsmanship. He will follow the leader- 
ship which inspires him and endeavor to live his own 
life according to the best ideals of leadership that he 
knows. The boy who actually lives these things has 
a vital living influence in straight dealing, He wants 



PROBLEMS OF RELIGION 135 

things done in the way he has been accustomed to think 
fair and right. He will put more force and conviction 
behind the requirements he exacts of others than the 
boy who has not had the advantage of direct contact 
with high standards of action such as the average boy's 
club affords. 

4. There can be no doubt of the effectiveness of 
this method as opposed to the lip service of mere 
religious instruction, but there are those who require 
a definite outlet for their religious emotions in addi- 
tion to the joy of living a clean and moral life. The 
settlement is, therefore, frequently obliged to furnish 
some form of religious observance' which will satisfy 
this want. That there is an actual want seems to me 
very significant. It is the natural human craving for 
the infinite and for divine guidance. Some of the diffi- 
culties which are being encountered by the modern 
church seem to me, possibly, to be the result of undue 
insistence on religious observance at the outset on the 
part of an organization which has held itself aloof 
and detached from modern life. Where living is put 
first, reverence and a desire for an emotional outlet 
will follow naturally. 

5. It is nevertheless a difficult and delicate task 
that the settlement faces when an attempt is made to 
minister to the religious requirements of its neighbor- 
hood. Susceptibilities, difference in forms of ob- 
servance, and varying traditions make it impossible to 
adopt any single form of observance. It is my belief 
that, so far as the settlement is concerned, this diffi- 
culty has been a blessing, because it has forced the 
settlement to disregard the petty differences that have 



136 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

so embarrassed and split the church and compelled it 
to go to essentials. 

6. Christodora House in New York City has met 
the problem which confronts it by going back to essen- 
tials. The house is in its administration and support 
entirely Christian but it is situated in a locality where 
the majority are Jews. Although its policy has always 
been non-religious, there still exists in the constantly 
changing neighborhood a suspicion as to what is being 
carried on, which centers in the very name of the house. 
With those who have become closely connected, this 
suspicion has become so far dispelled that there has 
been a call for some sort of religious service. Every 
Sunday afternoon a children's hour is held. The appeal 
is made through the medium of a heritage common 
to both Jew and Gentile. The youngsters of the neigh- 
borhood gather to sing simple songs of general wor- 
ship and to recite from the psalms. An interesting 
question arises when the children feel themselves too 
old for the singing hour. The boys are likely to 
cast it off altogether, drawing their moral stimulus 
from their club meetings and daily contact with the 
house. The girls on the other hand require some more 
definite emotional outlet and practically, though not 
exclusively, for them a series of gospel meetings are 
held earlier in the afternoon. Some results of these 
meetings are significant. One girl overhearing a charge 
that the name of the house prejudiced the Jews of the 
neighborhood against it, declared that it was not so; 
that such a prejudice existed only among low Jews; 
and that the best Jews honored the name of Christ 
and respected his teachings. I know of one club of 



PROBLEMS OF RELIGION 137 

Jewish boys, which felt the need of going further 
than the meetings at the settlement house had carried 
them, whose members made it a practice one winter 
to attend a different church or synagogue every week 
in order to hear the best variety of opinion. 

7. There is no institution, not even excepting the 
church, where the essential elemental Christian spirit 
is so dominant as in the settlement. The whole spirit 
of the work is so open-hearted, and so essentially is 
the doctrine "love thy neighbor as thyself" a part of it, 
that anyone coming into contact with the settlement 
is naturally influenced by its Christian spirit. Occa- 
sionally one will hear of a Jewish girl who has taken 
up Christianity. I do not believe that in general any 
conscious effort or pressure is brought to bear in cases 
of this kind and in my mind it is extremely dangerous 
practice to attempt to exert pressure. It is far more 
effective to graft Christian principles onto existing 
traditions. As the Jewish girl said, the best Jews are 
today recognizing the essentials of Christ's teaching. 

It has been my privilege to observe the work in 
settlements administered by Christians; by Christians 
and Jews jointly; and in houses controlled entirely by 
Jews. Although in most cases there was little or no 
organized religious instruction given, there was ap- 
parent, even in the Jewish houses, a dominating Chris- 
tian spirit. The lip service of mere religious instruc- 
tion is negligible for its value as a compelling moral 
force when brought into comparison with the actual 
living of Christianity. To such a mode of life the 
settlement method opens the way with its direct con- 
tacts and its ability to arrive at an understanding of 



138 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

the hopes and aspirations of all of one's fellow men. 
Tp understand one's neighbors is to love them. 

It was this Christian desire, to so order one's life 
as to make it possible to love one's fellow men which 
originally created the settlement movement and which 
still keeps it alive today. Is not the growing recogni- 
tion of the value of this spirit, whether it is called by 
the name Christianity or not, by both Jew and Gentile 
a significant and hopeful fact? Does it not mean that 
we are actually drawing nearer to the truly worth- 
while Christianity, the Christianity of practice divested 
of dogmatic considerations? 

8. So convinced am I of the truth of the new 
awakening, that I can not refrain from a short histori- 
cal digression at this point which, I hope, will serve 
to clarify the steps in the gradual progressive develop- 
ment which the human race has been constantly making 
towards this goal. 

Some of our modern enthusiasms for the poetic 
beauties of the mythology of ancient Greece and Rome 
cause many to think of this mythology rather than the 
late philosophy as the religion of ancient times. Myth- 
ology, however, was only the first beginnings. Greek 
philosophy has a long and important history. The 
outstanding figure is Socrates. Too much emphasis 
cannot be put upon the influence which his life and 
his teachings had over the morals of the ancient world. 
The writings of Plato, who expanded and to some 
degree may be said to have popularized the philosophy 
of his master, influenced thought in all countries border- 
ing on the Mediterranean Sea. At the time of Christ, 
Rome was the political master of the world. The 



PROBLEMS OF RELIGION 139 

highest type of thought of the day was embodied in 
Stoicism. It was concerned less with the deity than 
with human virtue. Birth, wealth, and even race were 
held to be accidents of position ; virtue alone made one 
man superior to another. As Rome became more cos- 
mopolitan, the austerities of the early Roman school 
were tempered by the humanities of the later Greek. 
We can trace through the writings of Seneca, Dion 
Chrysostom, and Epictetus the growth of this humaniz- 
ing influence, until it flowered in the writings of Marcus 
Aurelius in the idea of brotherly love and the world 
brotherhood of man. 

9. The influence of some of the minor schools 
should not be lost sight of. The Cynics and Rhetori- 
cians, played something of the role in the ancient world 
that the monks and travelling friars did in later cen- 
turies. The Rhetoricians accustomed people to listening 
to speakers at the street corner and in the market 
place. The Pythagorean school put emphasis on self 
examination. The deity was considered the center of 
moral ideas. Personal holiness and even ecstacies were 
conditions favorable to the comprehension of the divine. 
Contemplation, seclusion and cultivation of the self as 
exemplified by Anaxagoras were tendencies of the 
school. 

10. At Rome the presence of eastern slaves and 
freedmen as well as contacts at first hand on the part 
of the soldiery, had created a demand for the worship 
of the mysterious gods of Egypt. Great religious 
ceremonies were held in honor of Mythra, Isis, and 
others. For these, chastity, abstinence, ablutions, and 
long mysterious rites were considered a necessary 



140 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

preparation. With the decadence of Rome, the city 
of Alexandria grew to be the intellectual center of 
the world. Here was located the greatest library of 
antiquity. Here also grew up a school of philosophy 
known as Neo-Platonism, which combined conformity 
to the doctrines of the later Stoics with the atmosphere 
and hereditary tendencies of the east. Here at Alex- 
andria the thought of the Greco-Roman world came 
also into contact with Hebrew tradition. Philo, living 
at about the time of Christ, pointed out the similarities 
in the teachings of Plato and the laws of Moses and 
made an attempt to reconcile the two schools of thought. 
So great was this similarity that at a later time we 
find the Jew Aristobulus actually contending that the 
Hebrew books had been translated into Greek and 
been the source of inspiration to Socrates and Plato. 
11. Christ began his teachings in a world where, 
though the great mass of men were swayed principally 
by religious emotions and form, there existed leading 
minds dominated by a fine moral philosophy. Under 
the influence of conflicting tendencies men were thirst- 
ing for a belief that could reconcile the essential truths 
that lay in all of them. Founded upon the monotheism 
of the Jewish faith but divested of its national limita- 
tions, Christianity echoed the spirit and aspiration of 
the times. It expanded the Platonic system of ethics 
and the Stoic example of the virtuous life, tempered 
by the later Aurelian conception of the brotherhood 
of man. Christ's philosophy was the flower of all 
human effort in philosophy. It became the religion of 
mankind. The form of worship, however, was greatly 
influenced by the reverential rites and religious forms 



PROBLEMS OF RELIGION 141 

of Egypt which were the popular observances of the 
day. 

12. To a world approaching political dissolution 
and distracted by hostile creeds and colliding philoso- 
phies, Christianity offered in the manner of the Jews, 
divine revelations, authenticated by emphasis on faith 
rather than upon reason. Civilization, accustomed to 
forms was not ready for a religion in the essence, 
The result was the growth of the medieval church. To 
win a people susceptible to the supernatural, great in- 
sistence was put by the early fathers upon the miracles 
of Christianity. Indeed, so popular were these miracles 
and so rapidly did the number of them increase beyond 
even the bounds of the credulity of the times, that the 
church was obliged to forbid the practice of miracles 
except by duly authorized functionaries. To win over 
converts from pagan worship, a long series of oracles 
and sayings of the sibyls prophesying the sufferings of 
Christ had been cited by the Patristic writers. It was 
not until the time of the Reformation that incon- 
sistencies were pointed out which indicated that these 
writings could not possibly have been genuine. In 
1649 the French Protestant Blondel denounced the 
whole series as deliberate and clumsy forgeries. Cor- 
ruptions of this kind were typical of the early days 
of the church which was bent, as an organization, more 
upon securing political adherents than upon helping 
men to live according to the gospel of Christ. 

13. The early opposition and the persecutions, 
which were met with, caused the church to emphasize 
the value of life in the hereafter and to offer absolution 
from sins in return for martyrdom. The results were 



142 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

very baffling to the persecutors. It was impossible 
to stamp out an enthusiasm which made men so ready 
to die. This early passion for martyrdom, however, 
was founded upon a belief that the end of the world 
was very near at hand. As time went on the zeal for 
martyrdom diminished but the church maintained its 
hold over the individual by insistence on the importance 
of the salvation of the soul. This grew more and more 
to mean a personal salvation in a future world. Power 
over the remission of sins continued to grow in im- 
portance and became largely responsible for church 
ascendency in the middle ages. In return for gifts 
and contributions, either directly for building purposes 
or in fee for particular rites and masses, the church 
sold salvation to its adherents. Acceptance of the 
church as the divine mediator between man and God 
was a first requirement. Riches poured into the church 
coffers from those who desired mediation. 

14. Even after the sweeping changes of the Re- 
formation, the church, though divided, insisted upon 
its position as the recipient and custodian of the divine 
will. Christianity might have perished altogether had 
not the organization of the early church kept the flame 
alive and protected it from misinterpretation by in- 
sistence upon certain definite conformities. The revolt 
of the Reformation, however, was inevitable as reviving 
learning made continued insistence upon the acceptance 
of dogmatic facts more and more distasteful to edu- 
cated minds. The controversy, which has waged for 
centuries over these facts, has overshadowed the essen- 
tial philosophy. The Jewish girl in the settlement, 
who recognized the beauty of Christ's teachings and 



PROBLEMS OF RELIGION 143 

the possibility of so ordering one's life, comes nearer 
to essentials than generations of churchmen who have 
disputed the doctrine of the Virgin birth. 

15. Christ showed a way of life. The modern 
church does not hold in its keeping a body of com- 
plete and finished truths but it has before it a task to 
point out and teach that way of life. It is the problem 
of the coming generation to recognize both the neces- 
sity and the practicability of the way of life and to 
relegate to history and mythology those trappings and 
superstitions with which Christianity has been so long 
encumbered. As an organization the church has a 
larger task before it today than it has had at any 
period during its history. It has to deal not only with 
individuals but with social forces. Recently there 
has been an awakening among the clergy to a sense 
of the church's social responsibility. The movement 
has been met by violent opposition, threatened curtail- 
ment of funds, and accusations that "the pulpit is be- 
coming infested with bolshevism." The greatest ene- 
mies of the church are within itself, and are those who 
seek to limit its activities to making individual lives 
contented and comfortable. Today there is an open 
contest going on within the organization. If it is 
won by the reactionaries it will mean that the spiritual 
hope of the world is to pass from the church to some 
organization which is awake to the social needs and the 
social problems that confront it. 

The growth of social understanding is putting a 
new incentive into correct human living. The salva- 
tion of the individual soul in a world of eternity has 
become relatively unimportant. Men today are willing 



144 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

to live through hell to serve their fellow men. This 
conception of the social good as the end in life has 
come to be very definitely recognized. Such an end 
has a far reaching regulatory effect upon conduct. It 
is an unanswerable argument for a Christian way of 
life. Correct human living is more effective the less 
talked about. The settlement idea offers a method 
of living where one does not have to talk about religion 
or attempt to teach it, but simply to live one's life. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE SETTLEMENT AND EDUCATION 

1. From birth it takes from twenty to twenty-two 
years for the human body and mind to grow to maturity 
The individual must acquire for his own use knowledge 
of the experience of the human race. The acquisition 
of this knowledge is spread out over a term of years 
and for the active mind it is in reality never com- 
pleted. It is not, however, a simple process. Begin- 
ning in the most elementary way with the education 
of the child and its training in simple tasks to fit it 
for daily contact with other human beings, the under- 
taking grows more complicated until we come to the 
researches of the scientist and the philosopher. Edu- 
cation may be defined as the process of the continuing 
renewal of knowledge of the race, or as the means by 
which Society's recent comers acquire the experience 
of those who have gone before. 

This acquisition of knowledge may be through the 
natural contacts of life or through artificial or con- 
scious contacts. An understanding of these processes 
and their functional relation to society is essential to 
an understanding of the problems of education. 

2. The simplest form of natural contact is through 
shared experience. The child begins by imitating. It 
learns from things done in common with its parents. 

145 



146 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

It acquires language by associating sounds with ob- 
jects, because it has heard a certain sound always 
associated with a certain object. The names of things 
are the first words that a child picks up. Words like 
"out" and "down" are soon acquired, however, because 
the child learns to associate them with very definite 
happenings through hearing these words repeated by 
the mother or nurse every time the happening occurs. 
It is not long before the child learns to express its own 
desire for the happening before it occurs by repeating 
the word which it learned to repeat when sharing the 
action with the mother. Learning to speak is the first 
milestone in the educational process. 

3. Practically all manners are also acquired through 
the natural contacts of shared experience. Of course, 
the mother will tell the child to behave so and so; she 
may even command it; but the child will very soon 
forget what she has said. Daily contacts, however, 
with good manners will count. The child will enjoy 
doing what it has shared doing with somebody else. 
Not only this but the child will be quick to detect 
actions which do not measure up to those to which 
it has been accustomed. Thus not only habits but 
standards will be formed. There is much significance 
here. Manners have been sometimes called our "minor 
morals." 

Tastes, preferences, and esthetics are also acquired 
first and foremost through shared experience and 
natural contacts. The human being is definitely related 
to its environment. It will require a continuation of 
those influences which it has shared and which have 
become a part of its life. It should be understood, 



THE SETTLEMENT AND EDUCATION 147 

however, that through association there is a revulsion 
as well as an attraction. Too much and at the wrong 
time, may nauseate the mind just as easily as the 
stomach. 

4. So complicated are the experiences of the race 
that natural contacts cannot be depended upon to 
transmit all that is necessary to the rising generation. 
To quicken the process of learning various artificial 
means have been devised. The school is the most 
typical of these. It concentrates every effort upon 
transferring these past experiences of the race to the 
uninitiated. There are two distinct tasks encountered. 
The primary task is to teach the various systems or 
the means for getting an understanding. The secondary 
task is to give a meaning to the knowledge which is 
taught and to help the child to relate this body of 
knowledge to life. It is necessary, for example, for 
the child to learn to read and write before the book 
of history can be opened to him. It is necessary to 
acquire a knowledge of the system of the relations 
of numbers, in order to understand even the common- 
place inter-relations of everyday life. This first 
task of the school may be called the "lesson." It is 
the basic task of explaining first principles. Besides 
the "three R's" of reading, writing, and arithmetic, 
the school must prepare the child with an elementary 
knowledge of some of the particular sciences, physics, 
electricity, chemistry. There are in addition, certain 
trades, handicrafts, and vocations, wherein specific in- 
struction can materially shorten the process of acquir- 
ing by shared experience. Indeed, vocational instruc- 
tion is becoming so popular today that there are those 



148 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

who claim that the aim of all schooling should be to 
prepare the individual to earn his living. The prepara- 
tion of the individual for a place in society is undoubt- 
edly an important function of the school, but it should 
not be confused with nor limited to the giving of 
lessons. 

It is a very common mistake to use the word educa- 
tion in this restricted sense. Neither is all the educa- 
tional value of the school limited to the giving of 
lessons nor, it should be remembered, is the school 
by any means the only educational power. 

5. The school itself has a secondary function. At 
the same time that lessons are given it is possible to 
give the instruction in such a way that the pupil, besides 
acquiring a knowledge of certain systems of principles, 
acquires also a conception of their reason for being as 
well as a vision of their use and value to society. 
Secondary education, dealing with maturer children, 
aims to accomplish this. The school gets beyond the 
stage of lessons and enters upon the period of study 
when the philosophical or speculative element enters 
into the instruction which is given. The pupil learns 
from the lesson to do what he is taught. The student 
learns from study to understand. Primary education 
disciplines the pupil's memory, secondary education 
awakens the student's mind. The former is drilled to 
learn, the latter must be inspired to study. One of the 
greatest faults with our educational system is the con- 
tinued employment of primary methods throughout 
the whole course of schooling. Even the great uni- 
versities codify certain selected volumes into a great 
alphabet which they offer to the preparatory schools 



THE SETTLEMENT AND EDUCATION 149 

to be learned by heart as a test of the aptness of the 
pupil. Education does not seem to be able to shake off 
the bogey of the lesson. 

6. Were it not for a certain other quality, a certain 
by-product, as it were, which our schools possess, their 
plight would be altogether hopeless. The schools are 
little associations of individuals and they are seething 
with natural contacts. No environment exists at once 
more democratic and more social than the school. At 
home life may be circumscribed and unrelated to the 
great outside world. At school the poorest child may 
find himself beside the child of the rich grocer at the 
corner, grovelling before the unnecessary dullness and 
inexplicable mysteries of geography, but alike thrilled 
by the physical accomplishment of the football field. 
At school young human beings learn at once their 
differences and their likenesses. So amid the welter of 
natural contacts and the discovery of democratic rela- 
tionships, the preparation for life goes on despite the 
dullness of the lessons. The great majority learn to 
read and to write, to figure and to spell and to get 
along with other human beings. 

7. Then sometimes there will be a delicate nature, 
one who. will shrink from the jostlings of the crowd, 
one who for lack of happiness through ordinary shared 
enjoyment, will passionately seek to discover the mean- 
ing behind the lesson, craving something to love and 
to understand. Such a nature will learn to study, and 
will unfold its mind to grapple with the complex rela- 
tionships of men and things gone by and things not 
yet understood. The school produces few of these. 
They are not all alike. There are those who in retire- 






150 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

ment and detachment cling to their application to a 
particular task and so to a more or less degree serve 
the race. There are those who, fired by the revelation 
and .inspiration of their own understanding, turn to 
their fellow men with a resolve to awaken in them a 
philosophy capable of carrying society to a higher 
plane. Whether their vision be broad or narrow these 
serve the race as leaders. 

8. The great majority carry from the school those 
few formulas which are a necessary requisite of daily 
life and general philosophy of getting on with their 
fellow beings as they find them. The average man 
goes through life with an increasing devotion to what 
he is pleased to call "practicality." He insists that he 
has forgotten most of what he was taught at school 
and that he has acquired far more from experience. 
He is hostile to what he terms "theory" and he appar- 
ently holds the school somewhat to blame. He is cer- 
tain that to earn an honest living is the best and surely 
the most practical ambition that a man can have, but 
he thinks of the honest living more in terms of return 
to himself than in terms of production and its value 
to society. 

9. The school has given such a man in addition 
to his primary education valuable democratic contacts 
and a preparation for life as it is. This preparation 
he has drawn from the spirit of his human environment 
in the school. To many men it is the most valuable 
contribution which the school makes to their education. 
The spirit which I describe is always alive and always 
up to date. It breathes the opportunism of life. 

To what extent is this spirit made use of by the 



THE SETTLEMENT AND EDUCATION 151 

directing forces in education? Is there not an unreal- 
ized potential lying dormant here? Is the failure in 
general of secondary education to reach the student 
in some way related to the undirected democratic spirit 
which dominates the schools? 

10. I realize that these questions provoke sweeping 
criticisms of an educational system to which we have 
been devoted by long years of custom. I stand in no 
position here to offer satisfying solutions. I can, how- 
ever, contribute to an analysis of the problems in the 
conviction that a clear understanding of the end sought 
will prove the most fruitful soil from which constructive 
thinking may develop that newer vision of education 
of which we so sorely feel the need. 

11. At the beginning of this chapter the attempt 
was made to explain the necessity for a quickening by 
artificial means of the long process by which the indi- 
vidual acquires for his own use gleanings from the 
past experience of the race. It has been already said 
that the most typical of the artificial means employed 
for this purpose is the school. Let us for the moment, 
however, consider a simpler means, one where the 
third element, that of democratic association, which is 
so important in the school, is lacking. Let us assume 
that, aside from its mother, the child is to depend for 
its knowledge of past experience upon a single tutor. 
It is likely that the child will acquire a thorough primary 
education, perhaps a little more exact as to details than 
that given in the schools. So far as secondary educa- 
tion is concerned the child will be influenced entirely 
by attraction or repulsion derived from the opinions 
of the tutor. The tutor may be a negative character 



152 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

with no decided philosophy of life or he may have very 
decided ideas in one direction or another. However 
the case may be, it is easy to see the influence that is 
in his power. It is one reason that there are so few 
private tutors. Men do not want their children brought 
up with decided ideas and preconceived philosophies 
of life. 

12. Turning back to the school, the potential power 
to influence, which lies with the teacher, is not less but 
greater than that which belongs to the tutor. There 
is, however, a greater possibility of control. Through 
the school board, parents can be reasonably sure that 
the experience of the ages will be doled out to their 
children only in such quantities and in such a manner 
as they deem good for them. In other words, parents 
and elders as a class consider it far better for instruc- 
tion to be given according to prescribed lessons than 
that the children should be encouraged to study 
too soon. It has seemed best that certain definite 
ideas which society has considered necessary or useful 
should be presented in such a way as to be most im- 
pressive. 

13. It was once considered expedient to teach that 
bad little boys who took what didn't belong to them 
went straight to perdition. The falling away from 
medieval superstitions, however, has so served to 
diminish the imminence of the terrors of hell that it 
has been necessary to raise up the terrors of the police- 
man and of the jail. Insistence upon swift punishment 
for non-conformity to existing standards is undoubtedly 
an effective means of discipline for very young and 
unreasoning children, but it is my belief that it is 



THE SETTLEMENT AND EDUCATION 153 

possible to teach even the very young the social need 
for respecting property rights. As soon as children are 
reasonable it should be possible to instruct them in 
such custom and law for which there is actually a 
social need. If social needs do not exist the custom is, 
in all probability, outworn and it is absurd to insist 
on further unnecessary conformity. Fear is only effec- 
tive as a motive for conformity among the ignorant. 
Where there is intelligence it is imperative that the 
social need be made apparent. 

14. As histories written for the young have por- 
trayed it, the character of George Washington has 
been shorn of all human attributes except a tantalizing 
disposition to speak nothing but the truth, and a non- 
descript predestination to play the role of savior of 
his country. Undoubtedly the writers of such histories 
were firm in the conviction that it was best to give 
their young readers a portrayal of the character of 
Washington with the virtues drawn so clearly that it 
could not fail to stir in their minds thoughts only of 
emulation. 

History as it has been written is replete with heroic 
examples of the struggles of patriots with oppressors. 
Indeed, patriotism has been portrayed as the dominating 
force throughout all history. Scant notice has been 
paid until recently to the economic forces swaying peo- 
ples, factions and classes. Where histories do pause 
to record a great invention they, point only to its direct 
and obvious results without commenting upon the 
social dislocations and readjustments involved. His- 
tories have been pitched in a political and military key 
with little understanding of the economic undertone. 



154 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

And why? Because men have chosen to exercise a 
control over the giving of lessons and to emphasize the 
side that they believe best for the new generation to 
know. They have preferred to leave unsaid those 
things which reflected less credit upon mankind. His- 
tory has been the most perverted of sciences but it 
has not been the only branch of learning that has 
suffered. 

15. It was long contended that the world was flat 
and geographers who insisted that it was round were 
denounced as frauds and perverters of the truth even 
after Columbus discovered America. The great ad- 
vance in astronomy at the time of the Renaissance 
brought upon its leading figures scorn and persecutions. 
The forces controlling education, backed by the 
churches, rose in a body to denounce the theory of 
the descent of man when it was put forward by 
Charles Darwin in the Nineteenth Century. The rea- 
son for the shortcomings of secondary education in 
our schools is not far to seek. It is a failure because 
of that timorous policy which aims to suppress rather 
than to develop. It is a failure because those entrusted 
with the direction and control of education grow fat 
on their jobs and seek to stabilize ideas. They fear 
lest new ideas creeping in may disturb the status quo 
and disarrange that social relationship under which 
the controlling faction has fattened and which they 
themselves feel it to their interest to maintain. 

16. What then is the result? It is that schools, 
as we have developed them, fulfill the ends that are 
sought. But the end sought is not education. It is a 
mastery of the lesson. We are turning out from our 



THE SETTLEMENT AND EDUCATION 155 

schools pupils who are masters of the exact science 
and the particular task. We have learned how to train 
specialists, but where our schools do not produce special- 
ists the futility of so much that is taught is all the 
more apparent. The weakness of the system lies in 
the unrelatedness of the lesson to social life. There 
is no thought of a functional inter-relation of one 
branch of learning with another or, what is more im- 
portant, with life itself. There is a lack of co-ordinating 
in the whole educational system. Where at present 
we are content to bring the human being to a point 
where he may hold his own in society, our failure lies 
in that we are not able so to relate his life to the mass 
of other human lives, past, present, and future, that 
he may be inspired and assisted to produce something 
for society. 

17. I do not believe that I paint a vision impossible 
of accomplishment. The period in which we are living 
is one of an awakening to economic understanding. 
Hypocrisies and conceits which have held sway for 
centuries are going by the board. The growth of 
radicalism is but a sign of the times. When we con- 
sider, however, the consequences of a revolutionary 
overturn of our school system we realize that it is very 
like playing with dynamite to attempt any sudden re- 
form. I am not certain whether the change will come 
by socializing the school and broadening it to a realiza- 
tion of its latent possibilities, or whether on the other 
hand the school will develop along its present lines by 
perfecting the machinery for giving lessons, while at 
the same time there will develop side by side with it 
another organization concerned primarily with the mter- 



156 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

pretation of life and the inter-relation of its diverse 
complexities. 

18. The settlement even as it exists today is able 
to fill a very decided want. It supplements the lessons 
of the school and tends to socialize education. Yet it 
does still more than that, ^here the narrowness of 
the home fails to furnish an environment adequate to 
prepare the individual by material contacts for the com- 
plexities of society, the settlement can supplement the 
influence of the home. As Henry George has so well 
pointed out, very young children exhibit about equal 
ability in the primary schools no matter whether they 
come from homes of poor or rich, ignorant or intel- 
lectual. As the children progress, however, and the 
lessons become more complex requiring some sort of 
background of experience, that child, who is living in 
an atmosphere of intelligent contacts among people who 
can appreciate and help him to understand the signifi- 
cance of the lesson, will advance far more rapidly than 
the child whose home atmosphere is an intellectual 
void. Furthermore, if one of the children of an 
ignorant type of common laborer be taken at an early 
age from his limited environment and brought up in 
an atmosphere where natural contacts are the most 
favorable and highly developed, that child will develop 
in mental stature and capability beyond his brothers 
and sisters who have not had the same advantages of 
contact. I say this and believe it will be true even 
though the other children in the family have the same 
advantage of actual schooling that he is given. The 
point that I wish to emphasize is that the artificial con- 
tacts of the school are given vitality and meaning 



THE SETTLEMENT AND EDUCATION 157 

only as they are related to the requirements of actual 
experience and the natural contacts of life. Where 
the home environment is limited and incapable of relat- 
ing the individual to a full and useful life, the settle- 
ment is well equipped to supplement and broaden it. 

19. The task which the settlement is able to perform 
here is twofold. It can actually supply the individual 
whose home is barren with an environment of intel- 
lectual contacts. In addition it can add vitality and 
meaning to the environment in which so many so-called 
educated people live, where knowledge seems unrelated 
to the essentials of life and is, in many cases, nothing 
more than purposeless dilettantism. There are thou- 
sands of intellectual homes in America today, where 
there is no understanding of any relation of the indi- 
vidual to the community, where culture is sought as 
a desirable form of personal plumage rather than as 
a key to the understanding of humanity. The settle- 
ment idea is dedicated to the creation of an understand- 
ing of the relation of the individual to society. The 
movement amounts, in fact, to an attempt to socialize 
education. When we come to consider the present 
effectiveness of settlement work in this direction, we 
are forced to admit that, important as the service is, 
it is altogether too limited in scope. 

20. There are, of course, other agencies in existence 
which can assist in the task of socializing education 
but the part which they play is limited by a very general 
lack of conscious effort which is due in turn to the 
failure to appreciate the necessity of such effort. 
Organizations such as the Y. M. C. A. and Y. M. H. A. 
have built up splendid physical equipments, which they 



158 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

have maintained for years, but it is only very recently 
that their work has come to show an understanding 
of what one might call "social values." In this awaken- 
ing to the new consciousness of social relations the 
Y. W. C. A. has taken the lead. A type of leadership 
seems to have come to the front which is above con- 
tenting itself with the petty business of rescuing the 
individual, and which is striking out with the demand 
that society should be so organized that the individual 
is given the chance to grow and develop. 

21. Even the church appears to be re-awakening 
to the realization that after all it does occupy a social 
position. The great report of the committee of investi- 
gation of the Interchurch World Movement upon the 
Steel Strike of 1919 breathes a vision and comprehen- 
sion of social relationship and responsibilities which, if 
developed, will bring the church back as an active factor 
in daily life. It is to be lamented that so few of the 
individual churches have come forward in vigorous 
support of the Interchurch report. In the words of 
Cain "Am I my brother's keeper?" Churches that hold 
aloof, pursuing a negative policy make the same ex- 
cuses as Cain. 

22. The lessons given in the school are barren 
unless the primary teaching is supplemented by second- 
ary education. The school as it exists today is not 
equipped to go very far beyond the first rudimentary 
task of the lesson. There are other organs existent 
capable of giving valuable and necessary aid. There 
is no full education without philosophy. "Mens 
discendo alitur et cogitando." The mind is nourished 
by learning but far more by thinking over what is 



THE SETTLEMENT AND EDUCATION 159 

learned. The philosophy which a man forms deter- 
mines his outlook on life and his understanding of 
his relation to his fellow men. It will be the directing 
force in his own life. It will be a part of his religion. 
Real education should carry men to the heights of 
original thinking and inspiration. But education like 
religion may easily be debased and stereotyped and 
"turned from its original office of elevating man into 
an instrument for keeping him down." The school 
must have the assistance of the home, the church, the 
settlement and of other organizations equipped to inter- 
pret life. Our present failures are not due alone to 
the shortcomings and limitations of the school but to 
the failure of these other social factors to co-ordinate. 
Above all the others, the settlement, comparatively re- 
cently organized and with its newer consciousness of 
social needs undimmed by standardization, should 
have the clearest vision and should stand forth as a 
leader to bulwark and supplement the work of the 
school. There is a great service to be performed. The 
great body of men and women who have had the ad- 
vantage of the settlement point of view must not fail 
in this. 



CHAPTER XII 

PROBLEMS AND PITFALLS 

1. There has been no humbler nor sincerer attempt 
to understand life than the settlement movement. A 
receptive and open mind has been a first prerequisite 
with the great body of men and women who have 
gone to live among the poor. As Miss Addams so well 
phrases it, the first aim of social workers "is to get 
into such natural relations with their neighbors that 
they can reveal to themselves and to the rest of the 
citizens the kind of life that exists in industrial neigh- 
borhoods, perfectly frank in regard to its limitations, 
but also noting that it has those fine qualities that the 
best human life exhibits everywhere." 

2. This is not a task for amateurs. There is some- 
thing more than openness of mind required. Courage 
is required besides humility. Experience and training 
are necessary. One must have had a broad contact 
with life in general before one can attempt to interpret 
effectively any single phase of life. I think that too 
narrow a background of actual experience has been 
the reason for much of the ineffective sentimentalism 
and lack of balance that has sometimes characterized 
settlement work. No one has recognized this more 
clearly than Jane Addams. "There is a tendency," 
she writes, "to grow so tolerant that some of us are 
afraid that the settlements are losing their sense of 

160 



PROBLEMS AND PITFALLS 161 

discrimination. Tolerance naturally results from a 
closer acquaintance; and upon that we may well pride 
ourselves, but we may fail to see distinctions and to 
think we are tolerant when in reality we merely exhibit 
confusion of mind." 

3. There are those who, when they go to live in an 
industrial quarter, see only the suffering around them, 
the inequalities, the injustices, the hardnesses of life. 
They forget the life, from which they came and dis- 
card the associations of an easier environment of 
which they cannot help but feel somewhat ashamed. 
They sometimes go so far as to cut themselves off 
from former friendships which appear shallow indeed 
in the light of the deeper experiences and sufferings 
encountered in the industrial neighborhood. There 
are some who become more partisan, more bitter, more 
destructive in their desires than even those whose parti- 
sans they pretend to be. But destructionists of this 
type have cast half of their intelligence to the winds. 
They exhibit only confusion of mind. 

4. Society is not simple and elemental but exceed- 
ingly complex. Mere existence itself is so dependent 
upon intricate inter-relations among men that organized 
society will instinctively resist attempts to destroy its 
system. In an absolutely primitive society it was each 
man for himself. As population increased men were 
compelled to depend one upon another and to associate. 
"Mental power, which is the motor of social progress 
is set free by association, which is what it may be more 
properly called, an integration. Society in this process 
becomes more complex; its individuals more dependent 
upon each other. Occupations and functions are special- 



162 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

ized. Instead of each man attempting to supply all of 
his wants, the various trades and industries are separ- 
ated, one man acquires skill in one thing and another 
in another thing. So, too, of knowledge, the body 
of which constantly tends to become vaster than one 
man can grasp, and is separated into different parts, 
which different individuals acquire and pursue. . . . 
The lower the stage of social development, the more 
society resembles one of those lowest animal organisms 
which are without organ or limbs, and from which a 
part may be cut and yet live. The higher the stage 
of social development, the more society resembles those 
higher organisms in which functions and powers are 
specialized, and each member is vitally dependent upon 
the others. 13 " 

5. It is difficult today for the man who holds even 
a humble position of administration to live the simple 
life. It is necessary that the brain worker be relieved 
of as many of his ordinary cares as possible that his 
mind may be free for concentration upon his real task 
in life. Such assistance is just and reasonable. But 
the "easy" life contains perplexities beyond the worker's 
understanding. The society which assists and sup- 
ports its brainworkers for its service, is confused to 
find itself supporting others who appear to give scant 
return to society; whose claim to support may be that 
they have "always had it" or that they buy it. 

6. It is not my purpose here to discuss the nature 
of wealth, its accumulation, or even the justice or in- 
justice of it. The social worker, however is brought 



Henry George, "Progress and Poverty," Book X. 



PROBLEMS AND PITFALLS 163 

directly into contact with the problem and generally 
falls into the way of taking sides. To be surrounded 
dajly by poverty and to feel its awful fatality arouses 
the sympathy of even the dilettante. 

He who would be of real service must not allow 
his sympathies to unbalance him. He must be able to 
distinguish types of leadership, between, on the one 
side, Judge Gary, whose engrossment in the great game 
he is playing makes him blind to the fact that his pawns 
are human beings, and, on the other side, Thomas 
Mott Osborne whose essential love of his fellow men 
is the one dominating force that determines his actions. 
When one has played the game and won material 
success as Judge Gary has, there is a consciousness of 
achievement and a pride which it is difficult to pene- 
trate with the understanding that there are those who 
have suffered needlessly, because no thought was taken 
of them. 

7. Human nature is much the same always. Flat- 
tery and success are blinding forces. The men and 
women who give up the "easy life" to go to live in a 
tenement neighborhood may be as easily befuddled by 
conceit in their own success as the president of the 
greatest corporation. The resident in a settlement has 
too exclusive a contact with people who are not in- 
tellectually his equals. He receives altogether .too 
much applause and admiration from people who look 
up to his greater intellectual capacity with wonder and 
amazement and hail him as a leader when in reality 
he only towers above them because he stands upon a 
foundation of advantageous early training and environ- 
ment. 



164 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

8. Those who go to live in settlements should not 
turn their backs upon their former circles of contact. 
Even friendships which have grown apparently shallow 
and meaningless have a value. On the one hand they 
bring the worker into direct relations with people 
brought up in an environment which tends to develop 
personality and personal force and where intellectual 
standards are uniformly higher than in neighborhoods 
where settlements are situated. Such associations tend 
to keep the worker balanced and to develop his sense 
of values. On the other hand they tend to deepen the 
sensibilities of those who have no active contacts out- 
side the little circle in which they have been born and 
bred and sheltered and protected. 

9. Those who go to live in tenement neighborhoods 
have many difficulties which do not confront the so- 
called volunteer worker whose share in settlement ac- 
tivities is more occasional. There is the danger of 
becoming too much absorbed and of enjoying too little 
personal recreation and too little intellectual refresh- 
ment. The best work cannot be done by washed-out 
individuals. Life, happiness and the joy of living are 
essentials. The long evening hours and the demand 
for a maximum of mental effort at night make the 
life difficult and often, when proper precautions are 
not observed, really harmful. 

10. The low economic reward to the professional 
worker makes it practically impossible for him to 
marry and raise a family. But the profession of social 
work is not one in which one can marry and settle 
down in comfort. It is to the advantage of the pro- 
fession that it is not so. Very few men and women 



PROBLEMS AND PITFALLS 165 

are equipped by character and training to head a settle- 
ment. When they are found, however, their economic 
reward ought to be adequate because the headworker 
is responsible not alone for the continuous guiding 
policy of the house but also for the training of the 
individual members of the staff. Given an efficient 
headworker and a relatively large corps of day workers 
made up of both professionals and volunteers, in the 
ideal, the expenses for salaries ought to be divided 
among a limited number and more reliance should be 
placed on the volunteer. Where salaries are given and 
depended upon, those salaries ought to be adequate to 
attract and retain the very best people. 

11. The difficulties and problems which beset the 
individual worker react not only upon his own character 
and personality but, where he allows enthusiasms to 
unbalance him or permits his own tasks to carry him 
too far in one direction, the results reflect unfavorably 
upon the whole settlement movement. 

12. Quite recently, I was told by a neighborhood 
visitor that he approved of the settlement house and 
would come again because it stood for "culture" and 
the qualities that quicken the mind. This was direct 
recognition on the part of the neighborhood of some 
of those very tendencies which we have already dis- 
cussed in an earlier chapter as functions of the settle- 
ment movement. Let us suppose for the moment that 
undue emphasis is placed here. To what end may this 
lead? Does a higher culture mean a higher morality? 
It may; but it does not of necessity follow. Care 
must be taken to avoid the danger of what is too often 
developed — namely a cheap veneer of culture. This 



166 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

tendency is particularly noticeable in girls' work where 
we are likely to hear of clubs such as one of which a 
girl once told me : "We were organized to read Brown- 
ing, you know, but the girls are so anxious to read a 
variety of authors so we are going to take up Austin 
Dobson next." Culture does not exist without under- 
standing. Settlements are sometimes satisfied to give 
what is merely a smattering of the superficialities of 
culture of a type which is likely to breed discontent and 
emptiness of life. 

13. There is another movement too which is some- 
times spoken of as "bringing the beautiful to the 
people," which if persisted in without discretion and 
balance may be turned to very distinct harm. Masks 
and pageants, such as those which a few years ago 
swept over the country in a great series of performances 
and gave so much real pleasure and enjoyment, may, 
if indifferently done and wrongly insisted upon, bring 
only laughter and cheap sneers. Many may be thus 
alienated for whom protagonists would prepare the 
way for a better understanding and a wider apprecia- 
tion of the beautiful. Legends of wonderland and 
stories of fairies play an important part in the develop- 
ment of the imagination of young children, but we can 
hardly expect that the same stories, even when dramati- 
cally portrayed, will arouse in their fathers any very 
vital emotion beyond a passing nod and an exclamation 
of "pretty, ain't they?" The actual must not be lost 
sight of in ecstasies of the imagination. I mention 
these things because they are all issues which are pre- 
sented again and again within the settlement and 
wherein its influence may be made to count. Confusion 



PROBLEMS AND PITFALLS 167 

must not be allowed to grow by making life seem too 
unreal. 

14. Again a very vital question is, — how far in 
recreation? Is there a limit? The crowded condi- 
tions, the cramped space, the attendant poverty and 
suffering, in industrial quarters do not imply that there 
can be too much happiness and laughter brought to 
them. The settlement is apt to be forced into com- 
petition with the already existing agencies of amuse- 
ment, the dance hall, the cheap vaudeville, the moving 
picture show and until recently the saloon. The amuse- 
ment provided by the settlement must not be constrained 
and stilted if it is to compete with these. And yet 
most decidedly there are limits. I have heard one 
authority on boys' work say that he had found it 
absolutely necessary to eliminate basketball; that he 
"believed it an invention of the devil" and that it abso- 
lutely demoralized a whole house. This position seems 
so absurd and untenable that we need not enter into 
discussion here. It does, however, illustrate a valuable 
point. It is perfectly possible that such an activity 
may overdevelop so as to destroy the balance in the 
house; this is also true of dancing, pool, boxing or 
any activity where keen interest and excitement are 
the attraction. Balance is the greatest essential of the 
settlement and it must be maintained if success is ex- 
pected in anything at all which it undertakes. 

15. It has been mentioned that there must be com- 
petition between the ordinary sources of amusement in 
the neighborhood and the settlement. This must not 
be construed to mean that such competition should be 
pushed or even allowed at all where the dance and 



168 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

music halls, and even the moving picture shows are 
of such a character as to warrant the settlement in 
adding its stamp of approval. It is even possible to 
imagine co-operation. This indeed seems the best road 
to reform. If the settlement is to be regarded as the 
enemy of all amusement except that for which it is 
sponsor, its position must necessarily in time become 
untenable. 

16. Then too there is the social worker whose 
nemesis is psychology. It is this type of worker who 
brings forth the criticism that the whole movement is 
actuated by excitement rather than sincerity. The 
human being is never so fallible as when vested with 
power. Intellectual power gained in the simple friend- 
ships of the settlement is one of the most amazing 
and one of the most easily abused. I have heard lec- 
tures upon, "How the Boy Reacts." I have heard resi- 
dents discuss "what they could make their people do." 
There is a class of workers who find in the population 
of their neighborhoods material for psychological ex- 
periment. They are actually so dazzled by the excite- 
ment of the exercise that they come to think that the 
whole purpose of settlement work is to get "reactions" 
from young girls and boys or their less interesting 
parents. The danger that I point here is of psychologi- 
cal power wrongly used. I do not mean to belittle the 
accomplishments that are made possible by a correct 
understanding of psychology. 

17. In the preceding chapters sufficient emphasis 
has been given to the caution that the settlement worker 
should not approach his task with the idea that he is 
trying to uplift those whom he does not consider as 



PROBLEMS AND PITFALLS 169 

good as himself. I want to refer to it again here be- 
cause it is one of the first mistakes that the beginner 
is apt to make and one which is likely to destroy his 
usefulness altogether. Men are not capable of casting 
the mote out of their brothers eye before they have 
taken the beam from their own. This is equivalent to 
saying that men cannot make a success of uplifting and 
reforming their fellow men. The settlement idea was 
not inspired by a desire to reform or to uplift. It was 
conceived with a passion to understand. Let under- 
standing be the goal. Love will follow and with love 
will come justice and righteous action. 



CHAPTER XIII 

HOW IS IT TO CARRY ON? 

1. There exists no panacea ready made for the cure 
of human ills. Ready as men are to hope for the dis- 
covery of a miraculous formula for the deliverance of 
the world from suffering and from misadjustments, 
they are naturally suspicious of any new thing which 
appears even unwittingly to assume the proportions 
and aspect of a panacea. The settlement idea has been 
misconstrued and has suffered for this very reason. 

Canon Barnett was sure of his own aims. He was 
conscious that his enthusiasm had attracted many vig- 
orous supporters to his method, but he knew wherein 
the movement had fallen short and wherein it had been 
misunderstood. "I have written this paper," he wrote 
in 1898, "believing that men do not understand the 
settlement. There is as much good will today as there 
was fourteen years ago; there is more knowledge. Men 
and women, conscious of other needs, are more con- 
scious that machinery fails. They are anxious to 
avert the ills which threaten society and are ready 
themselves to do their part. It is because settlements 
seem to be a fad — an experiment of cranks or another 
mechanical invention, that they keep aloof." 

2. The many various activities of the settlement and 
its organized system of work give it the aspect of 

170 



HOW IS IT TO CARRY ON? 171 

being an institution in the physical sense. In reality 
it is an institution in the spiritual sense only. It is 
not the form but the aim and the method that have 
given it its character. There are many who contend 
that it has served its usefulness and that it is already 
drifting into oblivion. The modern specialist in social 
work is apt to be particularly severe in his criticism. 
He is apt to forget the valuable contribution that the 
settlement has made to his own experience. Fortified 
by interest in his specialty, he is apt to get out of 
touch with the very people whom he pretends to serve. 
The settlement is continually active in introducing new 
friends to its neighborhood. It is very often the most 
direct and helpful means of introduction available. Its 
task is not done after it has introduced one or even 
a great many friends. So long as the neighborhood 
needs friends at all, the settlement must remain on 
the spot. It must be always ready and willing to serve 
those who seek an introduction or a point of contact 
with the great mass of their fellowmen. This per- 
manent function of the settlement in relation to society 
I have discussed in some detail in an earlier chapter; 
what I desire to stress here, is a particular theoretic 
interpretation of this function. 

3. Constantly throughout these pages, I have used 
the word "settlement" to describe a physical organiza- 
tion and a physical fact. It is not the settlement proper 
but the settlers that are of paramount importance. It 
is not the organization but the method that matters. 
The test of good settlement work is not the tangible 
benefit that is effected for the particular neighborhood, 
but the potential benefit to all human life from the 



172 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

neighborhood spirit engendered. The settlement does 
not take its character from its gymnasium, its club 
rooms, its assembly hall, and its many physical at- 
tributes. The settlement itself is but the vehicle of 
an idea. A single room where human beings may see 
and know one another is as truly a settlement as is 
the best equipped up to date fire-proof building. As 
a room takes its character from the use to which it 
is put, so the settlement has taken its character from 
the neighborhood spirit which created it and which has 
put it to use. 

4. I have used the term "neighborhood spirit" 
only after a great deal of thought and consideration. 
The term itself is paradoxical. One's neighbors are 
one's close associates, those with whom one comes con- 
stantly in contact and with whom it is a natural desire 
to live in peace and good will. In a general sense 
one's neighbor's interests are one's own. When I use 
the term "neighborhood spirit" I use it with the sense 
of applying the same treatment and interest to those 
who, in the natural course of things, wosld not be 
actually one's physical neighbors. It is difficult for 
the average man to realize his relatedness to beings 
whose daily lives apparently never cross his own. 
Neighborliness, however, is an attitude of mind. Upon 
the prairies, farmers separated by miles of monotonous 
wheat fields call one another neighbor. In the cities 
the use of the word came very near to being forgotten. 
It was the awakening of city bred men and women 
to a sense of the neighborhood spirit that created the 
instrument which is called the settlement. The recogni- 
tion of a common interest and a common life shared 



HOW IS IT TO CARRY ON? 173 

by people whose superficial lives and environments are 
widely separated is full of significance and hope for 
society. 

5. There is nothing mysterious about such a con- 
cept. It is as simple as the profession of Christ that 
the first and last commandment is to love one's neigh- 
bor as one's self. There is, however, something very 
helpful added to it, something upon which the Christian 
church has laid very little emphasis and which was 
contributed to the world's philosophy through Plato, 
namely the concept of knowledge as a guide to virtue. 
It is my belief that Canon Barnett was mainly responsi- 
ble for the reaffirmation of this doctrine. His life, 
his method and his work all affirm it. He sought to 
interpret men to one another and he founded his settle- 
ment only that men of widely differing circumstances 
might find a place to come together in mutual helpful- 
ness and understanding. Too much emphasis cannot 
be placed upon the value of his vision and his achieve- 
ment. 

6. It has been many times pointed out to me, how- 
ever, that the value of the settlement method itself 
may be overemphasized; that it is possible to make 
out of it a roseate dream altogether out of proportion 
to its actual limitations and without paying due con- 
sideration to those other social forces which are just 
as important. Cannon Barnett was the originator cer- 
tainly, and the leader in a broad sense, of the settle- 
ment movement proper. He was only one, however, 
of the great number who put the idea into execution 
and have carried it far perhaps beyond the horizon 
of the original conception. It must be remembered 



174 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

too that there have existed all along organized efforts 
of human endeavor which have striven diligently to 
make the world a better place to live in. Without 
the example of their accomplishments as well as of 
their shortcomings, the settlement would surely have 
succumbed to an early death. No human movement 
bursts full blown into flower. Martin Luther did not 
originate the Reformation nor was he the only leader, 
yet we are accustomed to think of him as perhaps the 
one man most typical of the movement. Long before, 
Canon Barnett conceived his idea of the social settle- 
ment there were men who had been moved by similar 
motives and had done similar things. 

Yet the work of Canon Barnett is distinct and of 
greater significance than the work of this predecessors. 
The settlement movement, which developed from the 
work of the particular group of which he was the 
leader, differs very essentially from many of the move- 
ments which appear to have the same form. The 
"uplift motive" is NOT the dominating impulse in 
settlement work. This distinguishes the settlement, 
for instance, from the mission to which it bears perhaps 
a slight resemblance in some of the tasks which it under- 
takes. In Chapter IV the attempt was made to dis- 
tinguish various points of view governing human en- 
deavor. No matter what the viewpoint of the reformer, 
it must be recognized that his effort, his struggle and 
his method are of value for the light that they shed 
and for the accomplished performances which they 
offer as a guide to workers coming after. 

7. The great economists of the eighteenth and nine- 
teenth centuries pondered profoundly and wrote pon- 



HOW IS IT TO CARRY ON? 175 

derously of the economic forces which they conceived 
to be controlling the destiny of man. They believed 
in the inflexibility of economic "law." Lassalle, Engels, 
and Marx built up their philosophy of socialism upon 
a foundation of economic necessity and the "iron law" 
of wages. They saw no hope for society except in 
the ultimate rebellion of the oppressed proletariat. 
They saw no way for the improvement of economic 
conditions under a capitalistic system and believed the 
general social revolution to be a matter only of time. 
The value of Marxian socialism to the world has been 
variously interpreted. There still exist people today 
who shudder at the mere mention of any kind of 
socialism. For myself, I believe the writings of Karl 
Marx to be of the very greatest historical value. In 
the first place his criticism of economic conditions as 
he found them was certainly just. Believing as he did 
in the inflexibility of economic law, his prophecy, even 
though fallacious, was altogether natural. His con- 
clusions gave society a terrible scare. His method 
taught men in greater numbers than ever before to 
seek an economic system more endurable to live under. 
In seeking another system, men are learning as time 
progresses, that little by little, by constant effort and 
by constant thought, it is possible to control and even 
change through gradual evolution the operation of the 
very economic law which was considered to be inflexi- 
ble. The influence of socialism has been a healthy one. 
Proclaimed as a political revolutionary doctrine, it has 
brought so far political revolution only in a very limited 
sense. It has, however, already brought about a revolu- 
tion in methods of thought. With its program of a 



176 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

reconstructed human society, it has given the inspira- 
tion for the quest of a society moulded according to 
human design. It has given to humanity the inspira- 
tion that man can by conscious effort control his own 
destiny. 

8. The influence which socialism has had upon 
economics has given rise to a school of socio-economic 
thought which is based upon the recognition that 
economic tendencies can and must be controlled by 
social needs as interpreted by human reason. The 
awakening of the mass of men to this realization will 
sound the death knell of narrow-mindedness. Men 
must learn to lead that sort of life which will give 
them social understanding and they must not rest con- 
tent with the pursuit of personal happiness and the 
attainment of their individual economic comfort. Social 
responsibilities must be fixed. Social readjustment 
must be faced. Social harmony must be sought for. 

9. The harm that is done in the world, the uncon- 
scious incipient harm is done by narrow men; men 
who do not understand; men whose horizon is limited 
to their own immediate needs. More harm is done to 
society through ignorance than through any other cause. 
The settlement idea developed from the preconceived 
conviction that social justice is possible only through 
complete social understanding. Understanding is possi- 
ble only through knowledge, and knowledge may be 
achieved only through contact with existent social facts. 
The settlement idea is nothing more than the key to 
the situation. The great movement of the day for 
social research is dependent upon the settlement method 
for much that it is able to accomplish. The means of 



HOW IS IT TO CARRY ON? 177 

approach is through similar channels even though few 
of the individual workers actually establish residence 
in a particular settlement house. Settlement work may 
be done without establishing residence. It may even 
be carried on in a neighborhood where there is no 
settlement house in existence. Broad acquaintance will, 
however, be necessary and this is made much easier 
where the entree is gained either through personal 
residence or through the working centre of the settle- 
ment. 

10. Men are governed by more or less irregularly 
defined motives in picking their place of residence. 
Sometimes it is the locality that they like, sometimes 
it is the neighbors. Under living conditions as they 
exist today, it often happens that a man's physical 
neighbors are in a spiritual sense not his neighbors 
at all. The settlement idea contemplates the selection of 
a place of residence in the spirit of neighborliness and 
the resolve to be both neighbor and friend to those 
who are actually one's physical neighbors. It is a 
motive just as simple and just as human as the motive 
of the man who goes and settles in a neighborhood 
because he likes the people w T ho live there and wishes 
to be thought of and to think of himself as one of 
them. One man may pick his neighborhood because 
the neighbors are educated, or high class, or rich, 
another because the neighbors are human. The man 
who wishes to live among people who are just like 
himself or whom he wishes to imitate in order that 
he may be thought of as one of them is a narrow 
man. The man who longs for contact with people 
who are unlike himself is a broad man and one 



178 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

who will grow in character and intellect from such 
contacts. 

11. To put the settlement idea into practice in its 
most elemental form one has first to become a settler, 
or, I might better say, an open-minded and open-hearted 
neighbor. It is a comparatively easy thing to settle 
in a district where working people live, especially if 
one be endowed with the means to provide for oneself 
some of the more essential comforts of life. It is not 
always as easy to win the respect and sympathetic 
understanding of one's neighbors. Infinite patience is 
required. Few men have an understanding of even 
the simplest human relationships and an intelligent 
understanding of group relationship is even more diffi- 
cult to comprehend. Education has not yet brought 
men to the point where they believe it necessary for 
the average individual to trouble himself about such 
problems. When the settler attempts to uncover the 
social roots of his neighborhood he will be met with 
indifference and even resentment. He will find that 
the average man prefers to slouch on a dirty stoop 
on an unkempt street and soothe his body with a little 
tobacco rather than to bother himself about his relation 
to society. Some of the difficulties of "getting into 
touch" with apathetic neighbors have been discussed 
in a previous chapter. They must be recognized and 
faced. 

12. To a great extent the entree that is gained 
through the settlement house proper is of assistance in 
overcoming the barriers of both indifference and diffi- 
dence. It must be remembered, however, that the 
direct influence of the settlement is limited to com- 



HOW IS IT TO CARRY ON? 179 

paratively few people in the neighborhood. Only by 
the multiplication of spheres of contact of this type 
can the settlement method and influence be brought 
directly to the majority of men. It is foolhardy to 
talk of the multiplication on an adequate scale of set- 
tlement houses as they are organized today. With the 
settlement house as a center, however, it is to be hoped 
that residential communities of widening influence may 
grow in importance. The possibilities of individual 
personal residence as well as the possibilities of mere 
visits have as yet been but imperfectly realized. What 
is needed right now is not so much more settlements, 
as more living facilities in settlement neighborhoods 
where educated men and women may make their homes. 
What is needed most of all is a greater number of 
intelligent visitors, both regular and occasional, who 
will find in the settlement community the inspiration 
and the means to a broader social understanding, and 
who will be moved through the vision of social justice 
to apply conscious effort toward the improvement of 
human relationships. 

13. Such in short is a citizen's duty. It calls for 
the broadening of the mind and for unlimited sym- 
pathies. It calls also for specialized thinking upon 
particular problems. In the collective mind of the 
settlement, the varied viewpoints of human thinking 
and human effort should be represented. I have re- 
ferred to the lack'of definite contact between American 
settlements and American labor organizations. Resi- 
dence in the settlement of men charged with leadership 
in the labor movement is as necessary and as valuable 
to the community as is the presence of settlers from 



180 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

another district. That there are practically no such 
residents, is one of the most serious charges that can 
be brought against the settlement. It is a defect for 
which a remedy should be sought with all possible 
breadth of vision. It should be remembered that both 
the settler and the neighborhood gain knowledge as 
well as understanding from mutual contact. No vital 
force in the community should be unrepresented or 
untouched by the collective life of the organized neigh- 
borhood. 

14. If the settlement is to carry on at all it must be 
along these lines. It will not be through institutionaliz- 
ing but through popularizing the idea. As a contribu- 
tion to the solution of social problems the work of the 
settlement has been invaluable for the viewpoint that 
it has furnished. It will continue to be so. It has 
proved to be a method of approach, the efficiency of 
which is undoubted. It is a method which has tended 
to allay suspicion because it is founded upon simple 
friendship and trust in humanity. It seeks its knowl- 
edge with open mind in the spirit of humility. It 
stands convinced alike of the possibility and the neces- 
sity of democracy. It advocates equal opportunity for 
all. It deprecates class distinctions and class limita- 
tions. It makes use of class consciousness and group 
consciousness only as a means of arousing the dulled 
and senseless members of society to a consciousness 
of their social entity and of awakening them to a 
realization of group relationships to society as a whole. 

The settlement idea contemplates the ultimate com- 
prehension by man of a complete social understanding. 
It is a goal which man may reasonably hope to attain. 



HOW IS IT TO CARRY ON? 181 

But the unwieldy power of the great economic and 
social forces which dominate society can be mastered 
only by the continued application of a directing intelli- 
gence. Man must approach the task with his eyes 
open, with patience, and with a consciousness of his 
purpose. The task is the more difficult because no 
finite goal can be described which represents the attain- 
ment of the complete social understanding that is 
sought. Social theory, observation, and experiment 
must be tried out. I am aware that this essay is open 
to criticism because the conclusions that are drawn 
represent nothing which can be grasped as concrete 
by the many men who are ready and willing to see the 
problems of the universe settled tomorrow. Social 
understanding, however, is not a concrete thing. It 
certainly can not be attained unless man acquires knowl- 
edge of himself as a social being, of his social relation- 
ships to others, and of the relationships which himself, 
other individuals, and other groups of individuals bear 
to society as a whole. Contact with life is a first essen- 
tial. From contact comes knowledge and from knowl- 
edge, understanding. It has not been my purpose to 
summarize a body of facts nor even to do justice to 
the knowledge of social conditions, which the settle- 
ment movement has done much to promote. The idea 
of the settlement is the key by which understanding of 
social phenomena may be obtained. It is a means of 
approach. It is not propaganda but a method. The 
vision of social justice is there but it is a distant vision. 
What I have written has been in the hope that by a 
more widespread and more intelligent application of the 
idea that distant vision may be brought nearer. 



APPENDIX A 

STATEMENTS OF SETTLEMENT PRINCIPLES 

The following series of three statements were issued by 
the United Neighborhood Houses of New York during 
the period of reaction, questioning, and criticism following 
the close of the Great War. 

No. 1 

A SETTLEMENT SUMMARY 

The Settlements stand for service through neighbor- 
hood co-operation. They have sought, for many years, 
to interpret the best in America to their foreign neighbors, 
and to cultivate for America all that those neighbors have 
brought to her of value. They have steadily worked to 
raise the ideals of life and to deepen spiritual values. 
They have served as interpreters between classes. They 
differ greatly in opinion and method. They unite in sym- 
pathy and common aims. They are working always for 
progress by orderly process of law and for an America 
in which all classes shall live and work in concord. 

No. 2 

WHAT THE SETTLEMENTS STAND FOR 

The , Settlements stand for service through neighbor- 
hood co-operation. The thing that distinguished the Set- 

182 



APPENDIX A. 183 

tlements from other social undertakings was a desire to 
get a first-hand knowledge of the conditions of life and 
labor in the poorer sections of great cities. With this 
knowledge they sought to solve the problems through the 
co-operation of the people involved besides requisitioning 
all available resources. The Settlement does not come 
into a neighborhood with any preconceived social theory 
but with a determination to get at the facts and then 
develop a method of attack. 

The aim of the Settlement is always the building of a 
better social life through the development of character in 
individuals and an improvement in the environment in 
which the individual life is lived. 

The method of working towards this aim will differ with 
different Settlements but the aim is always the same. 
It is based upon respect for personality and is satisfied 
with nothing less than the opening of opportunity to all 
for the highest development, physically, morally, and 
spiritually, of which each is capable. 

WHAT SETTLEMENTS HAVE DONE 

While no two Settlements are exactly alike in method 
or in the character of the work they undertake there are 
certain features common to all. 

1. A common meeting place: A Settlement is first 
of all a Home. It is composed of a resident group of 
socially minded persons who are eager to learn the prob- 
lems which their neighbors face and to join with them 
in seeking the solution. They wish to be in friendly touch 
with all the elements in their neighborhood. They want 
the Settlement to be a common meeting place for people 



184 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

of all sorts and conditions. They seek to overcome class 
and race prejudice and bring neighbors together as friends. 
They encourage each to bring his contribution to the 
common good and thus try to conserve the values that 
different races and social groups possess. In this way 
the foreign born often find a new appreciation for the 
cultured arts of their race. Coming in contact with 
many different groups, only vaguely understood by the 
older Americans, the Settlements frequently have served 
as an Interpreter. 

2. A pioneer in social improvement : Many of the so- 
cial activities now regarded as common-places of city ad- 
ministration were initiated in the Settlements. They were 
experiment stations where new proposals in education, 
recreation and public health work were tested. The first 
kindergartens were established in Settlements. The yards 
of these institutions were early used as playgrounds. 
The beginnings of medical inspection and school nursing, 
growing out of the experience of the Henry Street Settle- 
ment, offer a notable example of this pioneer work. 
The evils of dark, unsanitary tenements impressed them- 
selves on the residents in the first Settlements who were 
among the early leaders in housing reform. It should 
never be forgotten that it was the Settlements which first 
realized the need and opportunity of neighborhood organ- 
ization and blazed the way for more recent efforts to 
organize communities for social improvement. 

3. As social centers: From the first the Settlements 
have offered facilities for social gatherings. When 
the saloons were about the only places which could 
be called social centers, the Settlements saw their 
opportunity of rendering a service to their neighborhood 



APPENDIX A. 185 

by providing rooms where those who wished to gather 
for self -improvement along intellectual and social lines 
could meet. Out of their club work conducted on the 
principle of self-government have come important in- 
fluences in developing a genuine spirit of democracy. 

4. As centers of co-operation : It is in the Settlements 
that channels of local need and supply center. Neighbors 
in search of information on every conceivable topic, those 
in need of material help, those with personal problems to 
solve come to the Settlements as to "a big brother." Here 
they expect to find the help they need or information as 
to the source of supply. Thus the Settlements became 
neighborhood clearing houses. That they hold the con- 
fidence of large numbers was demonstrated during the 
war when they gave the approach to their neighborhoods 
for such government agencies as the Food and Fuel 
Administration. In neighborhoods where Settlements 
existed, the war time agencies turned naturally to these 
institutions to accomplish their purposes. 

"a tree is known by its fruits" 

It would be possible to compile a long list of those who, 
having grown up under Settlement influences, are now 
occupying responsible positions in the life of this and 
other cities. Such a list would include doctors, lawyers, 
college professors, school teachers, many social workers, 
and leaders in movements for better municipal govern- 
ment. 

Four Settlements in New York City are today directed 
by graduates of the University Settlement. In every 
walk of life one meets those who found inspiration and 



186 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

guidance in the Settlements and are now useful members 
of their communities. 

Likewise from among those who have had the experience 
of residence in Settlements many today are rilling posi- 
tions of national importance as leaders in the political, 
educational, and religious life of the country and in the 
field of social reconstruction. These men and women 
gladly acknowledge the debt they owe to the Settlements 
for the human point of view they gained from their 
experience. 

WHAT OF THE FUTURE 

Such local neighborhood agencies as the Settlements are 
too valuable to be discarded. They have sunk their roots 
deep in the local soil. While it is conceivable and even 
probable that many of the activities they are carrying on 
will be turned over to municipal and community agencies, 
there will be need of such groups of intellectual, socially 
minded people living in crowded neighborhoods, 'and 
to some extent sharing the experiences of their neighbors, 
with the aim of organizing their neighbors for the im- 
provement of local conditions, so long as conditions exist 
which need to be improved. 

GAYLORD S. WHITE. 

No. 3 

IN RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS 

In response to questions as to the attitude of the United 
Neighborhood Houses on Organized Charity, Industry, 
and Americanization, the Houses submit the following: 



APPENDIX A 187 

ORGANIZED CHARITY 

We recognize organized charity as temporarily helpful 
and necessary. But we recognize also that private philan- 
thropy must and should give way to a community self help. 
To that end, we dedicate our energies to replacing philan- 
thropic agencies by public instruments, recognized by the 
people as creations of their own to solve their own diffi- 
culties. 

INDUSTRY 

We recognize that the present relationship of employer 
and employe is unsatisfactory and that readjustment must 
take place. Neither capital nor labor should possess arbi- 
trary and autocratic control of industry. The present 
economic strife must give way to an orderly democratiza- 
tion of industry. The conditions of production should be 
such as to induce the worker to contribute to that pro- 
duction in the largest measure possible. It should insure 
to him and his family a proper share in the fruit of his 
labor. It must further secure to his children the same 
opportunities for their full share of happiness and for 
the development of their minds and bodies, as for the 
children of other classes. Such re-organization, further, 
must give full protection to legitimate capital and to 
the brains and talents required in conducting business. 

On the other hand, we consider all efforts to minimize 
individual efficiency, or to reduce the possible maximum 
of production of a country, as destructive and inimical 
to the best interest both of the workers and of society. 

The present exigencies of the entire world make wanton 
attempts on the part of either capital or labor to hold 
back or reduce production a crime against civilization, 



188 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

AMERICANIZATION 

The Settlements believe firmly in American govern- 
mental ideals and, in the 34 years since their founding, 
have been teaching a respect for them that is based on 
understanding. Through the example of the club work, 
there has grown up a conception of the orderly process 
of government that is far more impressive than any teach- 
ing by precept could possibly be. Rule by majority, the 
right of the minority to be heard, the evolutionary process 
of change, as taught and practiced in the club, becomes 
woven into the life and spirit of the young men and 
women who grow up in the Settlements. They gain a 
power to think for themselves that is the basis of a secure 
and intelligent democracy. The Settlements, having prac- 
ticed rule by majority for so many years, have, in the 
firmest manner, shown their condemnation of class or 
partisan rule. 

This is the process of Americanization. It means not 
only a better understanding of America by the immigrant 
but also a better understanding of the immigrant, in all 
his resources and his weakness, by America. This under- 
standing must be as deep as friendship itself, and cannot 
be hastily reached by ready-made methods. It requires 
time. Americanization that expresses the best in our 
national life, involves the securing to the immigrant of 
good working conditions, fair wages, decent housing, health 
protection and recreational opportunity; leisure to learn 
to know, understand, and love our institutions. It means 
also a desire, on our part, to preserve and perfect all 
historical cultural and other contributions which our new 
citizens may have to make. It is idle to talk of "citizen- 



APPENDIX A. 189 

ship classes," "speak English" drives, or other mechanical 
devices, unless these efforts are vitalized by the determina- 
tion of Americans to welcome the newcomer with the offer 
of justice and opportunity. 

Such a course makes of men and women good neighbors 
and responsible citizens. It puts life in a community 
on a family basis. It brings government very near and 
makes of it a living, understandable thing, friendly, and 
daily serviceable to the thousand needs of our people. 

THE UNITED NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSES OF N. Y. 



APPENDIX B 



A SETTLEMENT CATECHISM " 



BY MARY KINGSBURY SIMKHOVITCH 
OF GREENWICH HOUSE 

What is a Settlement? 

It is a family living in a neighborhood. 

What kind of a family? 

A group of people who have had educational and social 
advantages. 

What kind of a neighborhood? 

A neglected neighborhood. 

Why does the Settlement family choose to live in such 
a neighborhood? 

Because it wishes to understand the problems of the 
wage-earner. 

What does the family do? 

It shares in the normal neighborhood life. 

Has the family an object? 

Yes; the object all families should have, namely, to 
take its full share in the development of the life of 
the community where its lot is cast. 



" Originally published about ten years ago by the Association of 
Neighborhood Workers which was the predecessor to the present 
United Neighborhood Houses of New York. 

190 



APPENDIX B. 191 

How is this "object" realized? 

Through the co-operation of the Settlement family with 
its neighbors. 

Does the Settlement aim to "do good"? 

It does not. It aims to be good with the rest of the 
like-minded neighbors. It aims, in co-operation with its 
neighbors, to work out the best sort of neighborhood life 
possible. 

Is the Settlement a "charity"? 

As the Settlement is a family, it cannot be a charity, 
although it may do charitable things and its efforts may 
be supported by charitable funds. 

Is the Settlement an "institution" ? 

No; a Settlement is a group of persons — a family, but 
such a group may carry on institutional work if it is 
appropriate, if the community needs it. 

When will it be appropriate to carry on institutional 
work? 

When no other agency can do it as well or better. 

Should the Settlement carry on institutional work per- 
manently ? 

No, it should carry it on only so long as it is absolutely 
needed. 

Why then should a Settlement begin such work? 

Because by initiating such work it can prove whether 
it is needed and can then get others to take it over and 
especially in this way can develop a better organization 
on the part of the community itself to meet community 
needs. 

Is the Settlement a "mission"? 

No, for the purpose of a mission is to propagate a 
certain belief, whether that belief be religious or social. 



192 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

The Settlement is not a propagandist institution. It is a 
family, and while it is possible that all members of a 
family may hold the same views — political, social or 
religious — it is not of the essence of a family life that 
it should become a propagandist group. 

Should a Settlement hold public religious services? 

This is the work of the Church. Why should a family 
usurp this function? 

How does the Settlement family maintain itself? 

Some members pay their own way and some are sup- 
ported by friends of the family, who believe that it is 
valuable that a certain number of the group should 
give their whole time to neighborhood life, which 
they would be unable to do if earning their livelihood bj 
other means. 

If the Settlement is a family, what is the Settlement's 
Committee or Board of Managers? 

Such boards are friends of the family who help it to 
carry on its neighborhood enterprises and give it counsel. 
Such a board may properly refuse to give support to any 
enterprise in which it does not believe or may encourage 
by financial help that in which it does believe. 

Is such a board necessary? 

It or something similar is necessary unless the Settle- 
ment family is entirely self-sustaining, and this rarely is 
the case. 

How should such a board be made up ? 

It should be made up of representatives of the family 
which constitutes the Settlement, and friends of this 
family who help to carry out this work. 

How can others than the board help the Settlement 
family carry on its work? 



APPENDIX B. 193 

By joining' the Settlement society from which the 
board is chosen or, in case there is no board, by sending 
contributions to the family itself. 

How otherwise can people help the Settlement family 
carry on its work? 

By assisting the residents at the Settlement. 

What do "capitalists" think of Settlements? 

Often they think they are "hot beds of radicalism." 

What do "radicals" think of the Settlement? 

Often they think the Settlement is an instrument of 
capitalism by which working people are lulled into inac- 
tivity. 

What do "religious people" sometimes think of the 
Settlement ? 

That it must be irreligious, if it does not hold religious 
services or is not connected with the Church. 

What do those who have studied the Settlements most 
closely think about them? 

That they are neither "conservative" nor "radical," 
"religious" nor "irreligious" but that, guided by experience 
and life itself, they propose to build up a more valuable 
kind of neighborhood life than that which at present exists, 
irrespective of theory and regardless of criticism. 

How can a neighborhood life be developed except in 
co-operation with city life? 

It cannot. Experience gained in one district, while 
not identical with that of another, has elements in com- 
mon with it. The neighborhood is a social municipal unit, 
and just as the State is dependent upon the family, so 
is it upon the neighborhood. Neighborliness is as primi- 
tive and as permanent as is the family. The city can 
never be understood nor its problems met unless the 



194 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

neighborhoods that make it up are known and their prob- 
lems met. The work must be correlated at every turn. 

Can neighborhood problems be solved apart from social 
problems ? 

They cannot. They are closely related. 

Does the Settlement then claim to be a "solution" of 
the social problem? 

It never has made such a claim, and never can, for 
the Settlement is a family, and the family is not a solu- 
tion. Every member of the family is free to hold what 
"views" he or she chooses — religious or social, but each 
member is bound not to force his views upon the group. 
No member of a family has a right to tyrannize over 
another. 

Is a Settlement a "palliative for social ills"? 

Again it must be repeated it is not a palliative, nor is 
it conceivable that any family could be a palliative. 

What is the general function of a Settlement family? 

To co-operate with the neighborhood and by this means 
to increase the capacity for community action. 

How is this co-operation brought about? 

By making the Settlement house a social centre. 

Why should not the school be the social centre rather 
than the Settlement? 

The school should be a social centre for the neighbor- 
hood, with the Settlement family taking the lead in 
making it such; but no development of the school will 
ever supersede the social life that gathers about families. 

Why is the Settlement family any more important than 
any other neighborhood family as a centre for neighbor- 
hood life? 

Only because by virtue of certain advantages — educa- 



APPENDIX B 195 

tion, financial or otherwise — the Settlement family is able 
to be neighborly in a wider and more effective way than 
are other families in Settlement neighborhoods. 

What are the advantages of Settlement life in compari- 
son with other kinds of social work? 

1. Seeing things in relation one to another. Ordinarily 
the social worker's mind is fastened on one particular 
aspect of the social problem. 

2. Giving an unparalleled opportunity to understand 
the indigenous life of city neighborhoods and thereby 
secure training for political activity. 

3. By being a member of a group rather than working 
as an isolated individual partial views are checked up by 
the constant criticism of the other members of the group. 

Is the Settlement permanent? 

The time is not yet in sight when industrial neighbor- 
hoods will not be benefited by the presence of such a 
family group ever on the alert, ready to help, eager to 
defend and desirous of passing on to others what the 
group has learned. Every such neighborhood needs a 
Settlement. 

What is the measure of efficiency of a Settlement? 

The extent of its co-operation. 

Is efficiency indicated by the number and character of 
clubs and classes and activities generally carried on in 
the Settlement House? 

Only partially. It is indicated as well by the personnel 
of the Settlement group. As the Settlement's life is a 
family life its work is more akin to that of the artist 
than of the business man, and while the efficiency of the 
artist can perhaps be measured it is not in quantitative 
terms. 



196 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

Is there then no common ground on which the Settle- 
ment family meets? 

There is. 

What is it? 

The belief that co-operation on the part of all the mem- 
bers of the community is both desirable and possible. 

How else may we define this belief ? 

As a belief in democracy. 

Would any one who does not believe in democracy be 
a suitable member of a Settlement House? 

He would not. 

Are there any other heresies from a point of view of 
a Settlement? 

There are not. The only heretic is he who does not 
believe in democracy. 



APPENDIX C 

the great war and the foreign born population of 
the United States 

enemy aliens 

Enemy alien males between the ages of 18 and 45 
residing in the United States, were compelled by law to 
register between June 5, 1917, and September 12, 1918. 
The following table shows both the number registered 
and the relation by per cent to the total number of aliens 
in the country. 

NATIONALITY NUMBER PER CENT 

Austria-Hungary 751,212 19.38 

German Empire 158,809 4.09 

Turkey 81,608 2.10 

Bulgaria 19,873 .52 

Total Enemy Alien Males 1,011,502 26.38 

Out of this number only 6,000 were interned in detention 
camps under Presidential warrants as being dangerous. 

PARTICIPATION OF FOREIGN BORN CITIZENS 

The following has been compiled from figures furnished 
by the Foreign Language Information Service of the 
American Red Cross. 

197 



198 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

Foreign language groups in the American Expeditionary 
Force : 

NATIONALITY NUMBER KILLED 

Italian 300,000 4,000 

Jewish 250,000 3,500 

Polish 170,000 ? 

Czechoslovak 125,000 2,000 

Greek 60,000 ? 

Lithuanian 35,000 500 

Jugoslav 20,000 ? 

Russian 20,000 ? 

Ukrainian 18,000 500 

Hungarian 7,000 200 

The War Department reports that figures for those 
of German birth or parentage serving in the American 
army are not accessible. It has been variously estimated, 
however, "that from 10 to 15% of the American 
expeditionary forces were men of German birth or origin." 

The following is a partial list of contributions to the 
Fourth Liberty Loan by foreign language groups : 

Italian $150,000,000 

Jugoslav 3,000,000 

Ukrainian 1,000,000 

Lithuanian 12,000,000 

Hungarian , 2,500,000 

Russian 40,000,000 

It should be noted that one-half of the Russian total was 
raised in New York alone. Seventy per cent of all 
Czechoslovaks subscribed to this loan but the figures in 



APPENDIX C. 199 

money are not made accessible. No estimate has been 
made of the Jewish contribution. Men of Greek birth 
or descent subscribed a total of $30,000,000 for the first 
four Liberty Loan drives. 



APPENDIX D 

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 

Bureau of Education Circular No. 34 Washington 

foreign-born whites unable to speak 
English, illiterate, and attending 
school in the United States, census 1910 

inability to speak school 

age limits English illiteracy attendance 



10 years of age 








and over 


2,953,011 


1,650,361 


446,745 


15 years of age 








and over 


2,896,606 


1,637,677 


138,253 


21 years of age 








and over 


2,565,612 


1,507,493 


35,614 



200 



APPENDIX E 

FINANCIAL REPORTS AND FINANCES 

In order to give a general survey of the scope of settle- 
ment finance, the following brief commentaries upon the 
reports of typical houses are appended: 

boys' club of avenue a, n. y. : 1913 disbursements 
were $28,272.00. For the year ending September 30th, 
1919, disbursements totalled $63,323.00 of which approxi- 
mately $23,000.00 was the payroll of the club, $12,000.00 
the building maintenance and miscellaneous, and $14,725.00 
for summer camp expense. 

christodora house of n. y. : In 1913 the total budget 
was $40,905.00. For the year ending October 31st, 1920, 
total expenses were $43,080.00. Of this, salaries amounted 
to $15,998.00. Miscellaneous expenses for the New York 
house amounted to $9,902.00. Expenses in connection 
with Northover Camp amounted to $12,572.00. $5,190.00 
was received for board at Northover and contributions 
for fresh air work amounted to $5,813.00. The budget 
included a $1,000.00 item for the Haven's Relief Fund. 

college settlement of n. y. : For the year ending 
Ocotber 1st, 1920, disbursements for the work in New 
York amounted to $11,230.00 of which $7,918.00 was 
for salaries. The expenses for the camp at Mt. Ivy 
were $8,266.00 additional. 

east side house of n. y. : For the year ending Decem- 
ber 31st, 1920, expenditures were $62,201.00. Of this 

201 



202 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

amount $38,555.00 was for salaries; $11,437,00 for food, 
materials and supplies; $2,695.00 for fuel and lighting; 
$4,917.00 for repairs and renewals; and $1,122.00 for 
assistance, loans, etc. 

educational alliance of n. y. : For the year ending 
December 31st, 1918, both income and expenditures are 
assigned to various committees. The expenses for these 
committees total as follows: Finance, $4,896.00; Mem- 
bership, $244.00 ; Legal Aid Bureau, $7,347.00; Education, 
$13,448.00; Religious Work, $21,770.00; House, $53,- 
761.00; Social Work, $19,132.00; Young Peoples' Branch, 
$6,811.00; Approximate Total, $127,418.00. 

Greenwich house of n. y. : Both income and expendi- 
tures are divided among special classes of work, with 
a total for the year ending September 30, 1920 of 
$35,494.00 Other expenses totaled $40,005.00. In- 
cluded in the latter are items for administration of $19,- 
197.00 and general house expense of $13,615.00. Ex- 
penses of benefits amounted to $4,273.00 from which 
receipts of $11,579.00 were realized. 

HENRY STREET SETTLEMENT OF N. Y. : Not Only IS the 

settlement responsible for the Visiting Nurse Service for 
which it is famous, but it operates three branch houses in 
New York City besides country places. The annual re- 
port for 1920 shows expenses as follows : Social Service, 
$71,282.00; Of this, Administration and General accounted 
for, $29,862.00; Branch, Hamilton House, $7,481.00; 
Branch, Lincoln House, $8,637.00; Branch, 79th Street 
House, $8,353.00; and Country Places, $25,628.00. The 
Expenditures of the Visiting Nurse Service were $329,- 
678.00 additional. 

Hudson guild of N. y. : For the year ending Septem- 



APPENDIX E. 203 

ber 30th, 1919, the total disbursements were $42,887.00. 
Of these $30,026.00 were in the general fund. Salaries 
formed an item of $18,422.00. Outside of the general 
fund the Clubs' Council expended $1,595.00 for coal, 
light, etc. The expenses of the Hudson Guild Library- 
were $1,508.00. This was more than covered by dues, 
etc. The expenses of the Milk Station were $1,413.00; 
this activity also was self-supporting. $8,343.00 was ex- 
pended for the Hudson Guild Farm, including repairs, 
maintenance and salaries. 

lennox hill settlement of n. y. : Combined budget 
and housekeeping account for the year ending December 
31, 1919 showed expenditures of $31,830.00. Of this 
amount $10,503.00 was for regular salaries; $1,858.00 
for special salaries; and $2,680.00 for wages. House- 
keeping expenses including service totalled $6,985.00 which 
was more than $1,300.00 in excess of the receipts from 
residents. Separate accounts were kept for the Boys' 
and Mens' Club, with a total expenditure of $19,493.00, 
and also for the Co-operative Store Fund, the Vocational 
Work Fund, the District Nursing Fund, and the American- 
ization and Arts and Crafts Fund. 

music school settlement of n. y. : The report of 
the treasurer for the year ending December 31, 1919 
shows disbursements amounting to $82,336.00; this 
amount included a payment of $39,796.00 to the endow- 
ment fund as well as $7,000.00 applied toward the cancella- 
tion of loans. The payroll of teachers amounted to 
$18,362.00; salaries including director, etc., amounted to 
$5,438.00; wages $1,153.00; expense accounts $5,794.00. 
It is noteworthy that the school receipts amounted to 
$13,885.00. 



204 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

Richmond hill house of n. y. : Total expenditures 
for the year ending April 1, 1920, amounted to $10,- 
370.00; salaries including janitor amounted to $3,963.00. 
The general expense maintenance, etc., including summer 
camp amounted to $2,335.00; printing, multigraphing, 
stationery, etc., to $1,367.00. 

union settlement of n. y. : Expenses under the 
general fund amounted to $16,982.00, of this salaries 
amounted to $1,375.00 and wages, $1,989.00. The main- 
tenance of the club house amounted to $6,883.00. The 
special fund account contained seven items totalling $31,- 
313.00 additional ; of which the two largest were House- 
By-the Sea $18,088.00 and summer work $7,129.00. The 
women's auxiliary of the settlement raised $13,062.00 and 
expended $8,171.00 which is in addition to the figures 
given above. 

university settlement of n. y. : See comment in 
Chapter VIII of text. 

south end house of boston : The f orm in which the 
annual reports are published makes them particularly use- 
ful to the student of social conditions. The work of the 
house is not only made intelligible to outsiders but 
accurate records are kept. These are presented in a form 
which gives them significance wider than the mere chronicle 
of what has been going on in one corner of the city of 
Boston. In reading over the reports one is inspired by 
the thought of what work equally well done may mean 
to the nation and to society. It is to be regretted that 
no budget report is published. 

hull house of Chicago : At the time this goes to 
press no financial statement of this, the leading settlement 
in America, is obtainable. None has ever been filed in 



APPENDIX E 205 

the Library of the Russell Sage Foundation in New York 
though according to the year book a quarterly report is 
made to the trustees and an annual report to the Sub- 
scriptions Investigating Committee of the Chicago Asso- 
ciation of Commerce. The house is incorporated with 
a self-perpetuating board of seven trustees each elected 
for a period of seven years. 

Chicago commons: The following is from the report 
of 1920: "It has required a hard and continuous struggle 
throughout these twenty-five years to acquire the present 
building equipment, valued at $103,640.00 which now 
stands clear of all encumbrances, the purchase of the 
leased land having been made this last year. The upkeep 
and maintenance of the buildings are now provided for 
by the income received from the neighborhood groups 
using the public rooms, from the resident household for 
their living quarters, and from the interest on invested 
funds. The Leah D. Taylor Memorial Fund has been 
started by residents with the hope that it may eventually 
provide the salary of a family counsellor and neighborhood 
visitor. Every dollar which is now given, therefore, goes 
directly to the support and development of the human 
service rendered at Chicago Commons not only in its 
great cosmopolitan industrial neighborhood, but in promot- 
ing many interests vital to the city, the country, the 
state, and the nation." — The report then goes on to say 
that the average sum received annually, namely, $14,111.21, 
ninety-four per cent of which was contributed in amounts 
ranging from $1.00 to $100.00, will not suffice for rising 
costs and sets the goal to be raised at $20,000. 

college settlement of Philadelphia: For the year 
ending September 30, 1913, the treasurer's account 



206 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

shows total disbursements of $15,696.00, of which 
$3,943.00 was to pay the salary of the Head worker and 
Assistants. $5,573.00 was paid over to the Head Worker 
for house maintenance, and $2,630.00 was collected by 
the headworker from board and rentals. The balance of 
the disbursements went toward paying taxes, interest on 
mortgages and rent on some of the properties occupied. 
The item of $2,444.00 for table board was more than cov- 
ered by receipts. Janitor, house service, and cleaning 
amounted to $1,970.00. 

kingsley association of Pittsburgh : Operates 
Kingsley House in the city with annual expenditure 
(1920) of $19,916.63, also the Lillian Home a fresh air 
farm at Valencia, Pa., with expenditures of .£20,915.31, 
and Lillian Rest at Valencia a convalescent hospital with 
budget of $28,181.83. 

toynbee hall: Administered by the Universities' Set- 
tlement in East London. The Public Account for the year 
ending June 30, 1914 shows a total expenditure of £1272. 
Of this £374 is charged to general expenditures of which 
sum only a little over £200 went to salaries and office 
expenses. For maintenance the sum of £689 was expend- 
ed. This included repairs, rates and taxes, coals, gas and 
water, and servants' wages and board. In addition to 
the Public Account £428 was expended by the Education 
Committee and £68 by the Entertainment Committee. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The following reference list has been compiled by way 
of suggestion for those who may be tempted to look 
further into not only the history and the aims of the 
social settlement but also to take up a detailed study of 
the larger problems of social conditions and social phil- 
osophy. It has been impossible to make the Bibliography 
in any way complete. The attempt has been made, how- 
ever, to make it suggestive and broad in scope. 

I 

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SOCIAL SETTLEMENTS 

Addams, Jane: "Twenty Years at Hull House".... 1910 

Barnett, Samuel A. : "University Settlements" 1898 

Barnett, Mrs. Samuel A. : "Canon Barnett, His 

Life, Work, and Friends" 1919 

Coit, Stanton: "Neighborhood Guilds" 1892 

Daniels, John : "America via the Neighborhood" 1920 

Maltiens, W. H. : "The Meaning of Social Settle- 
ment Movement" 1909 

Merrill Lilburn: "Winning the Boy" 1908 

Milner, Lord : "Reminiscence of Arnold Toynbee".. 1894 

Reason, W. : "University and Social Settlement" 1898 

Stelzle, Charles : "Boys of the Street : How to Win 

Them" 1904 

207 



208 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

Wald, Lillian D. : "The House on Henry Street".... 1915 
White, Gaylord S.: "Social Settlement after 

Twenty-five Years" 1911 

Woods, Robert A. and Albert J. Kennedy : "Hand- 
book of Settlements." Contains a valuable 

bibliography 1911 

Proceedings of the National Conference of Social 

Work Annual 

Reports (The best file of Reports is in the Library 
of the Russell Sage Foundation, N. Y.) 

Boys Club of Avenue A 1919, 1920 

Christodora House 1912, 1913, 1914, 1920 

College Settlement 1919, 1920 

East Side House 1913, 1919, 1921 

Educational Alliance 1915 (25th Anniversary), 1919 

Greenwich House 1913, 1920 

Grosvenor Neighborhood House 1919 

Harlem House 1919 

Henry Street Settlement 

1913 (20th Anniversary), 1920 
Hudson Guild 

1910, 1911, 1912 (25th Anniversary), 1920 

Lennox Hill 1918, 1919 

Madison House 1920, 1921 

Music School Settlement 1919 

Richmond Hill House 1920 

Riis House 1920 

Union Settlement 1920 

University Settlement 1920 

South End House of Boston 1907-1921 

Hull House of Chicago, Year Books 1913-1921 

Chicago Commons 1920 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 209 

College Settlement of Philadelphia 1903-1913 

Kingsley House of Pittsburgh 1920 

Toynbee Hall 1907-1908 to 1913-1914 

II 

SOCIAL CONDITIONS 

Addams, Jane: "Spirit of Youth in the City 

Streets" 1909 

Addams, Jane: "Philanthropy and Social Prog- 
ress" 1899 

Antin, Mary: "The Promised Land" 1912 

Bierstadt, Edward H. : "Alien America" (In prep- 
aration). 

Brown, William Adams : "The Church and Social 

Reconstruction" 1920 

Butler, Fred Clayton : Community Americanization 
— U. S. Dept. of Interior, Bureau of Educa- 
tion, Bulletin 76 1920 

Churchill, Winston: "The Dwelling Place of 

Light" (a novel) 1917 

Edwards, Albert: "Comrade Yetta" (a novel) 1913 

Factory Investigating Commission, State of New 
York, Robert F. Wagner, Chairman; Abram 
I. Elkus, Chief Counsel, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th 
Reports 1912-1915 

Manly, Basil M. : Commission on Industrial Rela- 
tions, Report, U. S. Senate, Document No. 
415, 64th Congress 1916 

Parker, Carleton : "The Casual Laborer and other 

Essays" 1920 

Riis, Jacob : "Battle with the Slum" 1902 



210 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

Riis, Jacob : "How the Other Half Lives" 1890 

Riis, Jacob: "Making of an American" 1912 

Steiner, Edward A. : "On the Trail of the Immi- 
grant" 1906 

Steiner, Edward A. : "From Alien to Citizen" 1914 

The Survey: See Files. 

Commission of Inquiry — The Interchurch World 
Movement : Report on the Steel Strike of 1919 

Committee on Criminal Courts : 

Justice for the Poor 1915 

Reorganizing the Criminal Courts 1914 

Publications of the Juvenile Protective Association 
of Chicago : 

The Department Store Girl 1911 

First Lessons in Gambling 1911 

Five and Ten Cent Theaters 1911 

Juvenile-Adult Offender 1912 

The Girl Employed in Hotels and Restaurants 1912 

Boys in the County Jail 1913 

A Study of Bastardy Cases 1914 

Revised Manual of Juvenile Laws 1916 

The Straight Girl on the Crooked Path 1916 

Public Dance Hall of Chicago 1917 

Junk Dealing and Juvenile Delinquency 1919 

Summary of Work 1913-1920 

Report upon Illegal Practices of the United States 
Department of Justice by the National Popular 
Government League, R. S. Brown, Zachariah 
Chafee, Jr., Felix Frankfurter, Roscoe Pound, 
and others 1920 

Annual Report of the Court of Special Sessions. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 211 

III 

HISTORICAL, ECONOMIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL 

A. E. (George W. Russell) : "The National Being, 

Some Thoughts on Irish Polity," 1916 

Adams, Thomas S. and Helen L. Summer : "Labor 
Problems" (especially chapter on Poverty, 
Earnings and Unemployment) 1914 

Beard, Mary: "A Short History of American 

Labor Movement" 1920 

Beveridge, W. H. : "Unemployment, A Problem 

of Industry" 1912 

Burritt, A. W. and H. S. Dennison and others: 

"Profit Sharing, Its Principles and Practice" 1918 

Cartwright, George W. : "The Mutual Interests 

of Labor and Capital" 1919 

Commons, John R. and associates: "History of 

Labor in the U. S.," 2 vols 1918 

Dewey, John : "Democracy and Education, An In- 
troduction to the Philosophy of Education".... 1917 

Dewey, John and Evelyn: "Schools of To- 
morrow 1915 

Ellwood, Charles A.: "The Social Problem" 1915 

Ellwood, Charles A. : "An Introduction to Social 

Psychology" 1917 

Fabian Tracts : Publications of the Fabian Society, 
25 Tothill Street, Westminster, London. 
Series I General Socialism. 

" II Applications of Socialism to Particular 

Problems. 
" III Local Government Powers: How to 

use them. 
" IV General Politics and Fabian Policy. 
" V Biographical. 



212 THE SETTLEMENT IDEA 

George, Henry: "Progress and Poverty" 1879 

Gleason, Arthur : "Workers' Education, American 

and Foreign Experiments" 1921 

Goode, Wm. T. : "Bolshevism at Work" 1920 

Hammond, J. L. and Barbara: "The Town 

Laborer" 1917 

Henderson, Arthur : "The Aims of Labor" 1918 

Hunter, Robert: "Poverty" 1912 

Kirkup, Thomas: "History of Socialism" 1913 

Kelley, Florence: "Modern Industry" 1914 

Lecky, W. E. H. : "History of European Morals" 1869 
MacDonald, J. Ramsay: "The Socialist Move- 
ment" (especially chapter "What Socialism is 

NOT") 1911 

Marot, Helen: "American Labor Unions" 1914 

Marot, Helen: "Creative Impulse in Industry; a 

proposition for educators" 1918 

Marot, Helen: "Handbook of Labor Literature" 1899 
Marx, Karl: "Capital," English Translation, 

Edited by Engels , 1904 

Marx, Karl, and Frederick Engels: "The Com- 
munist Manifesto" 1848 

O'Brien, George: "An Essay on Medieval Eco- 
nomic Teaching" 1920 

Penty, A. J. : "Guilds and the Social Crisis" 1919 

Penty, A. J.: "A Guildsman's Interpretation of 

History" 1919 

Rae, John: "Contemporary Socialism" 1889 

Renard, Georges: "Guilds in the Middle Ages," 

Edited by G. S. H. Cole 1919 

Russell, Bertrand : "Proposed Roads to Freedom" 1919 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 213 

Russell, Charles Edward: "Bolshevism and the 

United States" 1919 

Russell, Charles Edward B.: "Problems of 

Juvenile Crimes, Barnett House Papers" 1917 

Simkhovitch, V. S.: "Marxism Versus Socialism" 1913 

Spargo, John: "Bolshevism" 1919 

StreightofT, F. H.: "Distribution of Incomes in 

the U. S." 1912 

Stelzle, Charles : "Church and Labor" 1910 

Tannenbaum, Frank : "The Labor Movement" 1921 

Toynbee, Arnold: "The Industrial Revolution of 

the 18th Century in England" 1884 

Wallas, Graham : "The Great Society, A Psycho- 
logical Analysis" 1920 

Ward, Harry F. : "The New Social Order, Princi- 
ples and Programs 1919 

Ward, Harry F. : "Social Evangelism" 1915 

Ward, Lester F. : "Pure Sociology, A Treatise 
on the origin and spontaneous development 

of society" , 1914 

Webb, Beatrice and Sidney: "Industrial Democ- 
racy" (especially chapter "Economic Charac- 
teristics") 1914 

Wells, H. G.: "Russia under the Shadows" 1921 

Williams, Aneurin: "Co-partnership and Profit- 
sharing" , 1913 

Statistical Atlas of U. S., Dept. of Interior, Bureau 

of Census „, , 1914 



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